Back from vacation, what a funny treat to be greeted with these ArtX threads.

If you accept FT$ in your personal account for a "business" and do not extract the funds asap into your business account in X currency, you are not a business man. You are a co-mingling, clueless, destined to fail hack. You had a business plan that included accepting FT$ and leaving it in your account, until they became inaccessible to you. Ok.

Refusing to give a refund because you were to stupid to pull out the FT$ asap. Obv that is nuts and not Ok.

You can post all day long on twitter, mod BFI, write a blog, go broke, get kicked out or move out of your home, stay on a friend's couch or spare bedroom, go out have some fun... but you were too injured to perform the very simple duties of the business agreements made to loyal 2+2ers (and possibly others). That is so ridiculous. I have had some bad injuries in life, surgeries etc... given the time frames you are full of sh**. Unless you broke your back, your story doesn't add up as any credible excuse. Not Ok.

Provided sub-par services or mediocre services. Ok.

Used the marketplace to get business. Ok.

Sought out business through PM's outside of the marketplace and using your "transition from poker" thread to troll for business. Now this is more of an accusation based on what is quite obvious heresy ITT and otherwise. But this is obviously outside the duties and rules of a mod. Which I honestly don't even care about. Maybe Ok?

Wearing that white blouse in the picture. I was honestly shocked. Not Ok.

Your bad attitude is more obvious now that I read the thread. Honestly how you addressed me years ago makes me laugh considering I could flip a motorcycle get hurt and bed ridden for 5 years and I would be wealthy when I woke up. The fact that you mock the fact ITT that people assumed you were still playing poker or trading and end up on the couch at a friends house is pretty degen-scammy. I guess you never came out and said I am baller, it really is implied in your posts sometimes. Lol, whatever.

I am glad to have a new mod for god's sake, you have contributed a lot to BFI ArtX, for better and for worse. So I don't want to lynch the guy here, but he had no business claiming to run a business. Sloppy joe status achieved.

Most of this is just my opinion of course, but I honestly wish you the all the best in what is hopefully a new more controlled, focused world (going back to Aus, whatever you mentioned life change-wise). You really are a smart guy, after all it shouldn't be hard.

I can't believe someone is willing to jeopardize their entire reputation both personally and professionally, that took years to build; over $800.

I'm pretty sure that Art is intelligent enough to be able to know that $800 should be worth less than a legitimate reputation, so it seems to me that the $800 has a lot more value in this instance as a function of not having much money at the moment (reason for sleeping on a friends couch?), or he's just having horrible judgement with these FTP arguments. I don't think he'd be trying so hard to push the FTP argument if he had plenty of funds to cover, but even if that's not the case, it just means the alternative of horrible judgement, which still comes off bad.

The damage has been done.

Man, this thread is proof that no matter how much positive things you contribute on the internet, haters are gonna hate.

yeah, a mod uses his power to lock threads started about him from people he owe'd money to and blows people off only until they go public as he blogs about getting wasted in bars questioning the meaning of life...then tries to not pay because he lost his money on FTP... nothing to see here, just haters hating.

Especially given that there is a positive resolution playing out in the other thread on this topic. ArtX has agreed to a complete refund and will continue to work with the individual. The funds have supposedly been sent and so in a few days this should be over.

^ and a return to mod status? I really hope not.

No, its closer to how its very easy to lose any reputation, except a bad one. I stand by my position that if ArtX hadn't have been such a hard ass towards others, he wouldn't have been piled on. It's all perspective though, wrt trading talk & strategies, he was insatiable. But if the topic was related to the forum name, because he had no interest in mundane business aspects, he'd rather not deal with it, so it was just locked as irrelevant.

Henry, yes in the other thread the emails from Colin show some progress. But imo, it wasn't to do the right thing by his customers, but to stroke his own ego. Translation, I'll just make the sun come out, and dry up all the rain. I I I I I I

There are many business idioms, one of the best is to not dwell on the past, but to never forget it either. People remember pain, not only the good stuff. Another is people are creatures of habit, business exploits that to increase revenues.

I don't get the desire to be a mod so I don't really understand why people consider it to be a big deal or have any understanding of why anyone would want to be a mod.

cres,

There is a difference between being a hard ass on someone from a legitimate perspective-- such as yourself-- and then there is piling on because your part of a group that just sits and salivates for an opportunity to do so. Normally I would be much harder on someone than I am being in this case simply because on the scale of bad the people who pile on out of some pathetic desire to feel better about themselves are worse. That doesn't mean that I think what ArtX did was acceptable but I am rooting for him simply because it will piss off the haters.

Same reason that people want to be politicians.

to read the mod forum?

So essentially ArtX was given a free roll? If he was able to damage control the thread creating, blow people off long enough for them to give up, and just sweep things under the rug, then he would have been able to let it boil over and not refund anything. But if it reaches the point where it becomes evident his reputation is on the line he can just refund? Easy game, I suppose.

Also, a big reason people are most likely commenting on it is because of the hypocrisy stemming from his history of being so fixated on shutting down frauds and outing anyone who was even the least bit shady. Mods are also held to a higher standard. But I mean, let's not pretend everything's all good because of the fact things are being refunded. The actions that were taken before things came to light (unresponsive, unprofessional, services not rendered, etc) are more indicative of the problem.

Attempting to characterize anyone that doesn't approve of the actions taken by Art as a hater is contradicted by the fact that you acknowledge what he did was unacceptable. All that's really going on is, you are taking note that someone whom you typically have shared similar views as and are similar to (high post count, undeserved elitist mentality, forum image of being knowledgeable/successful, etc) being called out similar to how you were, and so you naturally want to root for him. It's a self-reflective defense mechanism. But of course your delusion wouldn't accept that, so instead you just concoct some rationale in your mind that you just don't like haters, even though you already agree with the very points they are making.

No one said anything about giving him a free roll. His behaviour was unprofessional but that is hardly uncommon even for people who are not having personal issues. In his case it seems pretty evident that he has multiple issues and while I am not excusing his behaviour the tendency to just shut down and deal with stuff tomorrow leading into an ever enlarging degree of procrastination until it is too overwhelming to address without being pushed into it. There is a way to be critical about that without showing the zeal that you and the others have shown. That kind of schadenfreude is more indicative of your own issues than anything else.

The argument that he is a hypocrite does not hold any water. There is a big difference between being a scammer and just screwing up. ArtX never started this with the intention of scamming anyone. He should have been proactive when he realized things were getting out of hand and shut the business down until he was in a better place but he didn't. Being temporarily incompetent and just wanting to stick your head in the ground is not the same as being a scammer even if it has similar outcomes.

There is no question that his mod status helped in getting clients, he should never have that status again

Amazing how blind people are to this guy's behavior.

Wow you've become quite invested in this emotionally haven't you?

this.the haters are mad . and nothing art does to rectify the situation will satisfy them .

I already addressed this. You're creating strawmans. Not many people have made the claim that ArtX tried to out and out scam anyone, I know I didn't. What I said was that the services he was offering had little real value and was similar to the WSP situation in that regard. WSP was overcharging people for information that was available for anyone willing to do their own legwork. He had "satisfied" clients just like Art did, or says he did. He was accused of overcharging and misrepresenting himself, which was then labeled as scamming/fraudding, even though he apparently was providing the services people were paying for (which wasn't even the case here in some of these instances).

I don't think Art intended to scam anyone either with the initial business idea, and him paying back peoples money is at least better than not. But those weren't the main issues though. It was the fact that he tried dodging the people until threads were made about him and even went out of his way to close some of the threads. Then his mod status was stripped because he wasn't addressing the issue. Then when he did finally address the issue he tried making the lame FTP argument and then finally threw in the towel.

Your last sentence is funny considering many people have said the same thing about your entire style of posting and how it's indicative of your own issues/insecurities. I also find it interesting though that people like you and ArtX have no problem showing "zeal" when trying to call out people like WSP, to the point of almost tripping over the keyboard in a rush to make the post or lock a thread, but when the same is returned back at you it's all of a sudden foul play. The only zeal being shown though is your zeal in wanting to stick up for Art, which I already explained why that's the case.

WSP came here with the intention to commit fraud -- WSP was actually his second account. That is the big difference. If people had not bought his trading gimmick he would have created a 3rd account and tried a different angle.

You and ArtX should stfu about wallstreetpro imo.

Example:

ArtX kills a girl, after much debate, Henry says, well John Wayne Gacy was worse. Who phucing cares about WSR?

If ArtX wasn't called out you think everything would have been resolved on its own, no he would have continued the scam behavior.

Funny arguments ITT.

The haters are the problem here, obv.

Loz, being serious about that is sad.

I'm not the one who brought WSP into this.

If he wasn't called out nothing would have happened. That doesn't make it a scam.

Very true.