Must have missed this part of the thread when I got up to refill the popcorn. Got a link?

i suspect, unlike dozens of people posting on this thread, Mike's family would be utterly skeptical of his narrative of man struggling to make things right. they've heard this story before

the anti-Gzeshians are a strange bunch

Exactly. Would love to hear someone in Mike's family respond to this thread. I'm sure they've seen and heard it all many times before.

You can help Mike through this "transitional phase" by sending him just a couple of hundred dollars via WU.

Together you and the "hundreds" of people you post about need only take turns sending out say $200 per day or collectively send what they can to help Mike "not scam" anymore ....

Mike gave me his home address in Pennsylvania. I think he would be happy to pm it to you so you can send him funds directly and avoid WU fees. Send whatever you can if you want to do so.

You have the opportunity, the choice is yours. Go ahead, choose.

or you can just turn the page, believing this is a case of "justifiable scamming", and do nothing more than post here

Scambook and Google show complaints from airports in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

http://www.scambook.com/company/view...chael-Borovetz

Mike has gone above and beyond what any of us expected of him by this point. We should all congratulate him on his recovery thus far, but do so while recognizing that he still has a long road ahead. Certainly none of us would do any better if we were walking in his shoes.

I get it that you do not want to mail or WU Mike any of your own money.

Maybe you can help him kickstart for his book. His story has 600K+ views here, maybe a publisher will buy in, too.

I have zero problem with Mike leveraging this thread, if he does it honestly and stops scamming.

Even books based on lies can sell, if they "inspire" people with their stories.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documen...on-little-lies

I find it hard to believe Mike could have any kind of career in sales. I've been in sales over 15 years and have learned people will talk to other people they like and will only buy from those people they trust. What about Mike's actions would tell you ANYONE would trust him? Sales also requires a solid work ethic, again not demonstrated by Mike. Just because someone can scam doesn't mean they can sell.

Mike has come here and, truthfully, has given everyone more information than we need to hear. He seems legit in his quest to pick up the pieces and move on to a better chapter of his life. I can't relate to anything he's going through but can empathize with his struggles. We are all human and make mistakes.

I hope you take recovery seriously and find a purpose in your life going forward, Mike.

So the guy who scams people in an airport for a living is taking offense that somebody is discussing breaching forum
etiquette? Lol.

My guess is that less than 1% of victims ever report to sites like scambook.

yes people would trust him, they obv trusted him when he got $ at airports. You don't need to know and get personal with someone overtime to sell them stuff. It's sales.

Mike did you make the $1800 playing pai gow or poker?

Sales is about creating trust. Establishing trust with a new prospect does not mean you are trustworthy, it just means you were able to appear to be trustworthy. Getting strangers to give you money in an airport based on a story proves that he is able to get prospects to believe he is trustworthy.
His scamming people out of money has to be harder then convincing someone to buy a canon copier or a new car or to update their bathroom or kitchen.
As far as hard work goes, being on the balls of your ass with no home and no money walking up to strangers over and over till you get someone to actually pitch is as hard as it gets in my opinion and sitting in an air conditioned hyundai dealership should be easy compared to this.
Mike has been a horrible, disgraceful man, a degenerate gambler and scammer, there is no question to that. He knows it as well.
I also understand when he says he did not wake up one day to become this person, he just spiraled there one day at a time till he woke up one day an ex felon, scamming people at airports and being homeless. Next thing he knew the Mike he was and the life he had ( probably was not the greatest guy to begin with) was gone and he had no idea how to get it back.
His story is not all that unique. Talk to some of the homeless in NYC and you will find at one point some of them were professional people with homes and families and similarly due to addictions or mental issues ended up homeless after one mishap after the other hit their lives.
Mike still has his mental capacity. He can speak articulately. He can get a life away from being a degenerate gambler and scammer if he really wants to.
I do not think he 100% wants a life away from poker. I get the feeling Mike would like to be able to control the degenerative side of the gambling and be strictly a poker player, making his quest even a bigger long shot.
Can Mike be happy, not gambling living alone, working and making $75k year, selling cars or whatever? And if he is real successful making $150-$250k year, would that change anything?
He really needs to figure out what would make him happy. What kind of life and see if through hard work and tons of therapy he can map a plan to get there.

Obviously this is a dream, long shot from happening but if Mike somehow got a book deal, became a poker celebrity his agent could put him in touch with a personal money manager to pay his bills and give him just enough to play poker tournaments. He does not need another Mike Sica. He could pay someone to do exactly what Mike Sica did except the staking part and obviously the friendship.
.

Mike did you make the $1800 playing pai gow or poker?

he won it off a few suckers at his local airport

I agree with what you said and this does change my thoughts. Thanks. It would be extremely hard work mentally scamming people out of money at airports. Can't imagine what a drain it has been on him. People must trust him to part ways with their money. As you can see, I don't post much in here but have found this thread compelling. I don't know how, after 20 years, you can go back to a normal 9-5 lifestyle. It doesn't sound like that is what he even wants. I don't know how it would be possible to simply focus on poker and avoid all the other leaks. Seems rather improbable. Even though he has done some crappy things, I don't think he deserves some of the hate I've seen in this thread. Obviously this guy has a disease much like that of an alcoholic or drug addict. It seems you have to abstain from gambling completely and also take on a totally different lifestyle to avoid some of the old triggers. Daunting task.

So it's basically confirmed that Mike is still scamming people. Why is this thread still open?

1) Mike gets outed
2) He instantly, without any provocation at all, posts his life story in explicit detail - presumably to generate sympathy
3) He makes a bunch of posts rationalizing his actions. He gets really mad at posters criticizing him, and he generally shows little or no remorse for his actions.
4) He won't confirm or deny that he's still scamming people today.

Do mods really believe there's absolute no chance at all that he's trying to scam people ITT? I think it's pretty clear at this point that Mike posted his life story not as a means of showing remorse or that he's ready to start a new life, but because he wanted to get people on his side to mitigate any damages caused from him being outed as a scammer.

The abundance of ridiculously stupid and obnoxious posts alone should justify locking this thread, but the fact there's a non-zero percent chance someone could get scammed ITT should seal the deal IMO.

Lets just shut down the entire site since there is a non-zero chance of someone getting scammed in every thread.

Kind of ridiculous train of thought you are on there.

And no, it is not basically confirmed that Mike is still scamming,

He is pretty much openly admitting to be committing regular criminal acts on this thread. No idea how it would work (dont live in USA) but can somebody report this guy to the police and have him locked up again? There must be enough info on him to get him busted.

The arrogance of his posts is baffling considering the position he is in. He seems to find it OK to steal peoples' money as if he has some kind of divine right above and beyond the rest of us to repeatedly break the law. Don't you have a conscience Michael?

lol, I don't know why you're taking so much offense to my post. It wasn't meant as some sort of deep criticism of mods.

But I think there's a massive difference between this thread and every other thread on the internet...

Would be good for him if the old man he got fired would find him at the airport and beat the **** out of him

You seem to write your own stories into the comprehension of what folks post. No offence taken.. Just responding to the ridiculous basis of your contention that the thread should be closed.

This thread involves people reaching out and offering money to a scammer and ****, but you don't think there's any more chance of someone getting scammed ITT than anywhere else?

Yeah, ridiculous train of thought on my part