I wrote this article for the homepage and hopefully it will just make people think a little more before acting.
BEWARE OF INTERNET HUSTLERS 09/27/03 - Krackman
Is there any honor among Internet friends?
The latest in a string of Internet hustlers doing their thing by screwing other people out of money goes even deeper than just two Internet friends.
This guy met a poster at the Rx bash in Vegas a few months back, gained his trust and then screwed him out of money. Even when confronted by tons of posters, the scammer gave wild excuses why he wasn't going to pay. He even threatened to run to the 'feds' if his former Internet friend didn't leave him alone.
Unfortunately, I have fallen victim to the same kind of scam twice.
The first time was three years ago when a well- known poster earned my trust by exchanging E-mails with me for more then a year and posting daily on the forums.
We posted in threads that each of us had started quite often and it seemed we agreed on many issues involving sports books. He had a slow moving ‘out’ with a ‘dime’ maximum. While he did not have a big bankroll, he seemed to have his head on straight and was a college student at my father’s alma mater.
I let him use two of my accounts to ‘middle’ some college football games. We made a killing during the first three months, and he acted like he had struck gold. Sure I was happy for myself, but also happy for him because he was making money betting sports for the first time in his life.
All of a sudden, three months into this cash cow, his compulsiveness appears. He calls me and says he blew $9,900 in the two accounts I let him use, but will pay me as soon as he can.
Needless to say, it has been three years and I have not heard a word from him. I just do not understand why he couldn't work off what he owed me. After all, we made much more than the $9,900.
This happened again last spring when another famous poster scammed me for $3,000. This guy had a good reputation both offshore and in the forums, but scammed us all.
People seem to take my kindness for weakness, so I hope I have learned from these two experiences.
This has also happened to many different books in well publicized and documented cases in the past four months on these forums. Posters seem to take shots at the books and do everything from past-post to circumvent the betting limits for the sole purpose of scamming a book.
The posters in these cases found loopholes in the system and used it to their advantage.
Gambling brings out the worst in people and sometimes that is evident when you look at the remarks some of the posters make on the forums. I am not saying all posters are scammers or bad people, just a larger percentage then you might think.
I hope this article can save someone down the line. Just remember, the friend you may think you have made on the gambling forums may be playing you like a fiddle.
BEWARE OF INTERNET HUSTLERS 09/27/03 - Krackman
Is there any honor among Internet friends?
The latest in a string of Internet hustlers doing their thing by screwing other people out of money goes even deeper than just two Internet friends.
This guy met a poster at the Rx bash in Vegas a few months back, gained his trust and then screwed him out of money. Even when confronted by tons of posters, the scammer gave wild excuses why he wasn't going to pay. He even threatened to run to the 'feds' if his former Internet friend didn't leave him alone.
Unfortunately, I have fallen victim to the same kind of scam twice.
The first time was three years ago when a well- known poster earned my trust by exchanging E-mails with me for more then a year and posting daily on the forums.
We posted in threads that each of us had started quite often and it seemed we agreed on many issues involving sports books. He had a slow moving ‘out’ with a ‘dime’ maximum. While he did not have a big bankroll, he seemed to have his head on straight and was a college student at my father’s alma mater.
I let him use two of my accounts to ‘middle’ some college football games. We made a killing during the first three months, and he acted like he had struck gold. Sure I was happy for myself, but also happy for him because he was making money betting sports for the first time in his life.
All of a sudden, three months into this cash cow, his compulsiveness appears. He calls me and says he blew $9,900 in the two accounts I let him use, but will pay me as soon as he can.
Needless to say, it has been three years and I have not heard a word from him. I just do not understand why he couldn't work off what he owed me. After all, we made much more than the $9,900.
This happened again last spring when another famous poster scammed me for $3,000. This guy had a good reputation both offshore and in the forums, but scammed us all.
People seem to take my kindness for weakness, so I hope I have learned from these two experiences.
This has also happened to many different books in well publicized and documented cases in the past four months on these forums. Posters seem to take shots at the books and do everything from past-post to circumvent the betting limits for the sole purpose of scamming a book.
The posters in these cases found loopholes in the system and used it to their advantage.
Gambling brings out the worst in people and sometimes that is evident when you look at the remarks some of the posters make on the forums. I am not saying all posters are scammers or bad people, just a larger percentage then you might think.
I hope this article can save someone down the line. Just remember, the friend you may think you have made on the gambling forums may be playing you like a fiddle.
