First to the OP, this is very unexpected and is a nice gesture. I disagree with those who say this will do no good. Will it change SBR's mind? Unlikely, but the show of support will make me personally feel a little better and so this thread is not a waste of time.

I have granted several hundred loans over the last year. I have been stiffed 30+ times. I have had at least 5 loans go bad because people got caught with multiple accounts. I even had a loan go bad after it become clear the guy was multi-accounting to pay me and I turned him in myself. Through all this, I have never asked SBR for any sort of restitution. Not even when they banned a guy with great loan history for "not paying his debts" 4 days after I granted a loan to him. (Apparently, the "we don't get involved in player-to-player transactions" rule is not iron clad.) But, I've never had something like this happen before.

Assuming shaggy3000 did indeed have multiple accounts, his fraud was only discovered because of the loan. Had he not received those points, he could have continued to fraud the system indefinitely, as he was clearly flying below the radar. There was zero evidence of fraud in his point history and he'd even made a larger store purchase in February without incident. There is no way any lender or anyone else without inside knowledge could have known anything was a muck. Then he used DS and my points to try and make a purchase and apparently an audit detected something.

What this evidence is, I obviously can't say and I'm sure SBR won't. But, they should. Without knowing the evidence, I can't say for sure but I'd think there is a significant possibility of a false positive. Maybe shaggy accessed SBR from a Wi-Fi hotspot that a scammer had used. Maybe he lives close to a scammer. Mayeb he used an anonymous proxy for personal reasons and was falsely flagged a s ascam artist because of it. Who knows. What I do know is that normally in these situations, the person just loses points and retains posting ability. Shaggy has lost both and thus is unable to defend himself.

And I do know that mistakes can happen. About 4 months back I gave a loan to a guy who was caught frauding the system and all the sudden Lou was sending me belligerent and angry messages inquiring "didn't I know poster XYZ (I've forgotten the name)" and "was I sure that XYZ wasn't my roommate." (I've been married for ten years and haven't had a roommate for 15.) Now at the time, I was doing some work for SBR and Lou could question me through IM. I had zero almost motive to cheat and tons and tons to lose by doing so and yet it felt like guilt was presumed. Had I not been on SBR's good side at the time, I might have been banned without a second thought or question.

Now, I personally only access SBR from home, so any connection must have been pretty weak (they refused to tell me the reason for suspicion.) Maybe he used the same internet provider and/or lived in the same city. I don't know. What I do know is that the IP couldn't have match, yet I still was given the third degree despite supposedly being a well trusted member by staff. I'd hate to think to what would happen to some poor sap who happened to used a flagged IP for legit reason (as outlined above). He'd probably be banned on sight without even the possibility of defending himself. This might be exactly what happened to Shaggy. And since SBR has blocked him from posting, we can't know. I'm sorry but this looks pretty bad and should cause concern for everyone who values their points.

I understand SBR wants to and needs to punish scammers. That is perfectly understandable and commendable. I have turned in every scammer I found. I also understand that SBR doesn't very much like me - possibly because I make a (small) profit off their point system, or possibly for some other reason. But here is the thing - the points were never used. SBR didn't take Shaggy's points - they took my points and downsouth's points. They are punishing us for someone's alleged sin - a sin they only discovered because of us. The way I see it there are two explanations for their refusal to cancel the point transfer - greed or malice towards me. From this and many other incidents involving a variety of posters I feel that SBR management has the same sort of "screw you" attitude of the sportsbooks that they are supposedly here to protect us from. This, much more so than the loss of the points, is what upsets me, indeed depresses me.

The whole situation is just wrong and I expect an explanation (although I don't have much hope of getting one.)

Thaddeus


P.S. If enough people nominate this post (the thumbs up icon, next to the gold coin), I will receive a token number of points from SBR for it, which I personally would find quite satisfying.