So, many of you have been following my investigation into @virtualgrowth, the betting scandal and the various other accounts he seems to be running.
It's been an interesting 24 hours and I feel we've learned a few new things.
Most importantly, we've learned that when an anonymous internet scammer is accused and cornered, he'll wriggle and twist and basically do anything to avoid looking guilty.
Perhaps most shockingly, he and his proxies are flagging my comments to try and hide my reasonable refutations to his claims.
Luckily other posters have spotted this:
Are these actions of an innocent man?
Now I have a confession to make. It looks like I've made a mistake with my upvotes. I did assume I bet at 100%. It looks like I've sometimes been making the posting bets at 10%. I assume I must have done this just after getting over 500 Steem and suddenly being given a vote slider to play with. I apologise for not being more accurate with this. I'm not a 'techie' at all and 'the blockchain' mystifies me.
To clarify: I take ownership of the fact that I was wrong about my upvotes being all at 100%
However this mistake makes no difference at all to the majority of the payouts. These bets were valid according to the rules. And now @virtualgrowth is attempting to push the narrative that the rules were always that one must bet over a certain percentage. He seems to have convinced a few credulous souls. But not everyone is so gullible.
Here are the stated rules from when I began playing. For the majority of the games I played these remained the rules.
As you can see ALL bets were legal.
Currently @virtualgrowth is trying to control the narrative relating to what he's actually accused of. Sadly, as my previous post detailed, it seems to be far worse than just 'mistakes' with his pay outs.
Extremely concerning is the different accounts which he seems to be involved with.
Whilst initially taking care to appear separate from these two betting accounts with interactions like this:
He has now essentially admitted that he was running these two sock puppets. I tried to talk to him about it in a private chat.
But of course he ignored me and I was forced to bring my concerns to the attention of the community.
Many other posters have voiced(publicly and privately) their concerns about what else this person is involved with. For obvious reasons I won't list all the accusations here but...
He seems to control @Steemprentice And he seems very closely tied with @taskmanager. Interestingly @taskmanager seems very closely tied with @steemprentice, running various promotions together.
It was when I brought the connection up to @taskmanager that my posts were flagged. Then another account attacked my position. After telling me to STFU he offered to pay me to remove my post.
Now guess which account often delivers the coins for taskmanager.... Yep, you guessed it. @d3nv3r
Funny coincidence eh?
Further concerns:
when I asked, quote innocently, who runs @crowdsourcedwhale, look who answered:
Methinks the lady doth protest too much.... Or perhaps not. I can't be totally sure. But why is he involved?
And, heaver forbid, there's even a link to potential witness account which I've been told is his as well.
Is any of this certain?
No.
Could it be a group working together?
Yes.
Most importantly, is it worrying that someone as dissimulating and unrepentant as @virtualgrowth might be funneling money from newbies to himself in many many various different way AND setting himself up as a witness?
Yes, very.
Please feel free to discuss reasonably below. All mistakes made herein are my own
How do we move forward as a community? How do we enjoy these games and still feel the trust? There will be more in the future, so even if we come to an amicable resolution for this incident, how do we avoid future problems?
I think there should be some community standards for these games which help both the hosts as well as the participants, for an overall better Steemit community. My proposed rules:
Betting Games on Steemit Need Rules https://steemit.com/steemsports/@mrosenquist/betting-games-on-steemit-need-rules
Well I agree on this totally. I've been pushing for some standards since I first became aware of the problem. these games need audits. Without this there will always be chaos. Hence the histrionics in the comments above.
I could've sworn a big part of this COMMUNITY was to get people to work TOGETHER.... Thank you for pointing out successful SYNERGY.
Offer still stands to give you your "fair" share as determined by me out of my own pocket...
This entire site is beta, including everything in it.
You guessed it that includes all these games.
Your value that you added was at a % less than everyone else, you shouldn't receive as much as those who put as much value in as they could.
I don't really care if you "feel" you should get as much as everyone else, you are not the one running the game or making payments, your feelings on the matter are moot.
I don't run any of these games, I don't have a say either. My above opinion doesn't matter. Myself and 3 others sat and talked about this for a couple hours today, we all had various opinions but agreed upon one thing. The person running the game gets final say.
If you are this hard up for money maybe one of these barn raising efforts are in order. I don't think there is any need of bullying it out of people.
@thegame sent 2 STEEM (to @nikflossus & a few others) as suggested by the community. And someone else sent 3 SBD to @nikflossus.
Agreed and simply tried asking nikflossus for a fair solution, which has already been over compensated.
16 minutes ago Transfer 0.500 SBD to nikflossus : I pledge 50 cents to the nikflossus in need campaign ;0
Perhaps the most blatant case of 'defending a strawman' I've seen in a long time. Pathetic.
you're quite an intense looking guy...
Thank you for this. Not what I usually listen to but it was interesting. He sounds angry. Is this how you feel?
Parties at my house...
After enough acid has been dropped I mean...
You couldn't handle it :P
Any chance you could link any of these actual messages by finding it in https://steemit.com/@d3nv3r/recent-replies and posting the message link here? I'm not trying to be a jerk here, just trying to help whichever of you is telling the truth here prove your side of the story. The good thing about verification on STEEM is nobody can ever delete anything they have posted.
What do my messages have to do with anything?
I mean they are all there...
Did you watch the video in my comment?
I would be person c... I think A and B are easy to pick out..
I haven't investigated anything nor do I care to. Just pointing out to OP screenshots are not as convincing as immutable links to posts. I have nothing against either of you or your actions, whether good or bad.
https://steemit.com/steembets/@d3nv3r/re-nikflossus-re-d3nv3r-re-nikflossus-re-virtualgrowth-what-of-exactly-and-why-am-i-being-accused-and-attacked-about-and-what-is-fair-resolution-20161214t120004439z
If you need to see anything else let me know and I'll take a look.hey @taoteh1221. Between this and my previous (much longer) post you'll find most of what you need. Here's the link to the first one https://steemit.com/steemsports/@nikflossus/alert-betting-account-run-by-a-trusted-member-of-steemit-found-to-be-a-scam
I'm not really interested into checking out either side's validity, I'm just suggesting that links to immutable posts by either of you are far more believable than screenshots. Anybody can fake a screenshot. Not saying you did, just pointing out a more effective means to prove things for folks who do not have much time to spend investigating things.
I only learned to take a screenshot so I could make these posts. Believe me when I say I wouldn't know where to start to fake one. Thanks for your input anyway.
I was busy for most of yesterday, but i wanted to stop by and leave some thoughts about the situation.
My feel here is that both users were acting in somewhat good faith. Here is my personal guess as to what happened.
VG started running this game using the steembets account. At the time he started it, he had no disclaimer on the site that votes had to be 50%.
NOw there are three alternate scenarios that fit with the facts, from VG being the least culpable to VG being the most culpable, they are the following.
My personal feelilng, though i cant say with certainty, is that the reality of the situation lies at or near #1. That is to say, that VG is guilty of nothing more than failing to make all the rules clear to those playing the game.
Obviously, there are two possible resolutions to this. The first resolution is VG says "fine print we can change the terms at any time" and doesnt pay. In the virtual gambling world, it happens. A lot. and its unfortunate. IMO, the result of this will be people believing that he is running a dishonest game.
The other resolution is that he pays the bets made on the terms advertised. This is what i would consider an honest resolution. It is certainly the only resolution that would make me inclined to gamble with him.
Regarding multiple accounts mentioned in this post: VGs use of multiple accounts and screen names is considered the norm on steemit. I might consider it sinister on a gambling forum or something, but I don't see anything sinister here. Hes not trying to astroturf or use his multiple accounts to pretend to be different people who have had positive experiences with the game. An examination of the "connections" between the accounts, would only be relevant if some attempt had been made to conceal that they are all controlled by the same interest, or if he had attempted to gain some advantage by representing these accounts as being controlled by seperate actors..
regarding the use of flags: As far as im concerned, when you run a gambling game, you give up the right to flag users who play then have a complaint about the payout or the fairness. I don't consider VG to be 100% in the right here, but even if i did, and even if nik's complaints had absolutely no merit whatsoever, i would consider him flagging them entirely inappropriate. Yes, it sucks to have someone make unfounded accusations about you. But facing an accusation and replying with candor and honesty will do far more for your credibility then responding to it with a flag. OTOH, a system where people can run gambling games, then supress user concerns about fairness and payout, is a system that begs to be abused.
Regarding the offer to pay nik to delete. I would rather see an offer to pay nik in return for nik saying that the matter had been solved to his satisfaction, but i don't see anything inherently dishonest about asking for these posts to be deleted once the issue that prompted them is resolved.
I play these games and they do payout. You voted with 1% the mystery has been solved. This has devolved into a petty argument.
Look at all the money being paid out from the account. Vote 100% and you'll get paid. Its not a scam.
Reread the initial post. They payout for some people but not for everyone.
Reread the facts about voting. Early on I voted at 10%. This was within the rules.
Reread the rest of both posts. There's a lot more to this than one poster skimming the winning pot.
Reread my suggestions. I want a full audit to see how dishonest this is.
Only one side is making this petty Reread the facts in both posts. @virtualgrowth will say anything in the comments to try and seem reasonable. He makes it up as he goes along.
In my experience @virtualgrowth has always been honest and paid me out on these games as well as staking him in poker tournaments. He's earned my trust.
I see no evidence of an outright malicious scam. At best I see instructions that can be made clearer and possibly a buggy script that needs some tweaking.
PS: In my first comment I made about being paid out by @steembets I didn't even realize @virtualgrowth was behind those accounts. Finding out he was behind them gave me more confidence in the games.
Sound like you had a good experience with him. Another person made a thread (it's in the comments of my first thread) in which he argued that this game was only paying out to the same group of people, sometimes irrespective of whether they'd won or lost. Other Steemians confirmed this.
My position has always been that we need a full audit. Privately I've got a lost of suport for this from people who have had enough.
Sounds like an audit should be done and possibly some small make good payments. I would think a single power down cycle on the accounts should cover paying out those that are proven to have been missed.
I chatted with @virtualgrowth on discord about it and I'm going to do some blockchain data mining to audit all votes and payments on the accounts to sort this whole ordeal out.
I feel the best approach from a data integrity angle is to go through the entire blockchain for that period so that any changes in vote % etc will be included. It will probably take me a few days to write the script, gather the data and then make sense of it all.
@virtualgrowth has agreed to payout any missed payouts discovered in the audits.
That's kind but already got @Walden on it. I'm sure you're good but I apparently he's 'the man'...
It's big of you to recognize your mistakes. I haven't really been betting those accounts so I wouldn't know if they are paying, but downvoting something because you don't like it sounds fishy. If you don't agree with something then argue against it, why keep others from seeing a lie when you have the truth?
Thanks. I'm fairly new to Steemit and I'm not tech savvy but I think my instincts are right on this one. I've received a lot of support as well.
I'm all for fair resolution. Please stop the false accusations however.
It's going to be a pain the ass but you'll get some useful auditing tools out of this. Let me know if you need any help mining data from the blockchain.
Have all the glitches in the script missing people been resolved moving forward? I noticed a payout today, did that one go to everyone that voted?
Data mine would be helpful. Payouts are all good today.
This is not a taskmanager related post, it does not belong in the taskmanager tag unless you intend to pay for resteems, host a contest or giveaway, or happen to be giving something out to steemians. So unless you are paying for a service I would change that tag or risk flagging for improper tag.
Thank you
@taskmanager