I had a friend that had built up to $100+/post and 62+ reputation, with great content and socializing.
Her account just got nuked to zero rep and equivilent loss in $ value from downvotes and a promise of 'Consider your account dust'.
As far as I can tell there is no recovery or protection from that (abuser will continue to flag/downvote and there's nothign that can be done about that, can't block them, etc).
Which is a bummer, as that's a major flaw of Steemit: I sure as hell am not going to put in time, effort, or $ investment into steemit if in a day months of all my work and effort and gains can be destroyed...with no protection from that and no recourse when it happens.