Owner of Hookups Steam group wants your money (scam)

Sadly I think the only thing that would work is paying him off to never get on the 'net again.. And even then, he'd probably still do it after taking your money :D.

It's funny cause when we all left, he retaliated by calling us all replaceable. Since September he's kept the only admin who didn't leave and hired a mod who was desperate to get into the group before but was never accepted for being shady.

Now he's literally begging for people to help him. Oh how replaceable we are, the group used to be run by a tight team of good friends and Sammy was basically able to do nothing and just sit back amending peoples announcements. I truly believe he never expected us all to leave the group like that. Now he sounds desperate and victimized.

Man o man, this Sammy guy is such a fucking deluded, manipulative fucking snake. See his wording on the sentence "but if you would like to donate to Hookups every month you may do so with the donate button the front page." It's so transparent he wants to earn a monthly income off his shitty site built by others' hard work, for doing next to no work himself, and he words everything to try and inspire people to give him just that. Of course, he couldn't just say "if you want to donate you can do so with the donate button on the front page". He also doesn't bother finishing the sentence with any description of what the donations would go to, such as capping it off with "..to help out with server costs" or something similar.

I despise assholes like him. Really, he should just get a life-long ban from computers / the 'net.

Oh, it's not new in the slightest.

The owner also stole an old game and tried to get it published from greenlight claiming it as his own.(he even had a kickstarter for it that unfortunately had people giving money to him).

Sadly, a lot of people don't.

29,000 people currently aren't aware.

Except that some people believe in human decency over human greed, so it's nice to have a little reality check when people can't quite see the red flags.

I mean, hell, Scientology is still a thing. That should tell you something.
Everyone has a right to their own choices, but it's only right that we make sure people are fully informed, if they look like they're about to get into something potentially harmful.

oh look.. the new mods is so protective against sammy.. :3

i got in, right on time

ha lol "BreakFree On Greenlight:
Vote Yes to BreakFree!
This game will be given to you guys for your support with this game on Greenlight, please spread the word about it as much as you can to help it get onto Steam. Here is the BreakFree Greenlight Page to vote. "

hes one of those pathetic games that bribes people to greenlight it with keys poor breakfree :(

why did the comments go away?
none of them looked negative, accidentally clicked the link a 2nd time a minute later and they were gone

That's really interesting. You handled yourself well in there, good job.

Some highlights:

• "Also make it a real serious question and not something that you saw in a thread"
• "░▒∷ Ֆнιȵ๏вι ∷▒░: was it, in your eyes, absolutely necessary to word your option for "no" so dramatically? // =^[(O){d_b}(O)]^=: It was just a joke, why are you freaking out"
• "I made that "No" to be funny and to deminstrate that gamers are selfish people in life"

lol, poor shadowforge kybaig ect trying to be human in that chat, caught between a crazy guy and a troll

I agree, however Salenuats do use referrals, they explain so on their homepage. However since their launch they've grown to be much more tight and sound group, so definitely a good alternative in my eyes :)

Yeah, the only reason this is still up is because it's informative and, right now, is just being used for a good laugh. The moment it starts to become aggressive is the moment it's shut down here too. There's a difference between having a laugh about it and threatening people.

Yes, their site is against Steam/Valve's ToS as it's not authorized reseller. Their group will probably be closed rather soon.

If someone does discover violations and misconduct at Hookups, report it to steam through the "Report violation" link prior to revealing the incident(s) here. Spies, spies, spies!!!

I'll be passing out tinfoil hats later on next to the water dispensary.

for this thread?
gib monies plz if you no heartless bastard.

Basically, the group functions as a sort of discount aggregation service, which finds discounts and then mentions them to members, but apparently engages in some rather nefarious practices.

Tell jona Steam is a boring place without his reviews. :p

If you believe that he's not paying taxes on income from referral links or from his new site, please report him to the IRS here.

Regarding the topic, I find what he's doing despicable. Hopefully, the dissemination of information regarding his true motives will help expose him for who he really is. That's the best we can really hope for, outside of Valve deciding to take action themselves.

Ol' Scammy had a group, ee i ee i oh!

wheres the keyshop?

Except the people he's lying to, censoring, kicking / banning from his group, misrepresenting, as well as ex-mods / members who he calls "crazy people" and tells tall tales about. Yeah, totally not hurting people.

I've seen these 'ex-admins' and the members from their new group come to Hookups and advertise their stuff both on the profile and in the group chat. People love to turn to negative side of people when clearly they have their own negative side.

"Hey! Leave Hookups and join Salenauts/ Opium Sales or whatever else we created! The Hookups creator keeps getting trolled HAHAHAHA!"

^
Pretty much sums up the point of this thread

A few group/member reports wouldn't go a miss ;)

To be fair I don't think you understand 100% why people are so upset with what Sammy has done, past and present. He did edit people's posts to inject his referral and there is proof of it out there. However I do agree that people shouldn't be joining the Hookups chat simply to troll or harass people. However remember that's not everyone and definitely not the people I'd be happy to say I represent.

"I feel this group could be turned around if he wasnt under attack from stuff like this"
Ah, but if it wasn't for such criticism, why would he want to change it in the first place?
All of this didn't happen just because of random internet spite, you know. It happened due to poor practices and the subsequent poor handling of it.

It sucks, but he did some dumb stuff and then pretty much flipped off all of his detractors equally.
Now he is simply feeling the backlash. If he has really learned, he'll do his best to ride this out without making it worse, and if he can prove himself in that respect, eventually people will lose interest in giving him a hard time.

As much as I hate the term, implying that people are just trolling because they're big meanie-heads who don't like nice guys trying to do nice things is just white-knighting. Eventually the embittered ex-members / ex-moderators / observers will lose their momentum, and he'll have yet another chance. Just remember that this didn't happen without reason. It's kind of a natural cause and effect kind of thing. It's one thing to have a group split up due to a difference of opinion, another to have a group split up due to bad behaviour of the administratorship, and whole different thing when it's combined bad admin behaviour AND insults on top of injury. If you're so willing to create disillusioned ex-members, you're simply going to pay the price in their retaliatory efforts eventually.

Not that I'm saying trolling the group is any correct step by any means, but this had to be expected, y'know?
Besides, this thread (and the others) aren't to rally people to harass the group. It's to make people aware of what kind of group it is / what kind of history it has.
That's it. There ain't no more.

I generally agree with you, and that a lot of people here should back off. Really, the group owner has done no real harm to anyone. Being a douche isn't a crime.

EDIT: I just chopped a part of my original post because it is clear you think both parties are wrong to an extent. I agree.

For all the righteous indignation you felt when one of our community members was rude to Bobo ... what did Bobo do here to justify getting kicked from the group? Please try to be a little consistent here.

"He realizes he was in the wrong on this whole "poll ordeal" and tells me that there wont be a fee to access said website.."

Only he totally doesn't realise shit. See the chat log I posted elsewhere in the thread. He claims the polls' wording was a "joke" meant to show how selfish gamers are (which is fucked up enough to begin with as well as just plain stupid if you're trying to earn a living off of them).

However, if you've fully read the old "drama at Hookups" thread (linked to in the OP) and all the stuff linked to in it (which you clearly haven't), you can form a quite simple image of Sammy's character - even without seeing the posts he made there (which he deleted in some cases minutes, in some hours after he posted them) insulting people posting on the thread, as well as berating ex-mods for posting screenshots of announcements / threads in the group that he tried deleting to hide his own misbehaviour, as if they somehow were doing something immoral by simply showing what kind of screwed up stuff he'd done. I saw those posts purely because I happened to be on the thread at the time.

He's a manipulative, lying, spineless weasel with little to no moral fibre in him. He's tried in the past, and is trying again, now, to earn a living off of others' hard work while doing jack shit himself. First it was through the old group mods' work in compiling deals and posting them, then hijacking their posts to inject his ref. links, only to then lie to his own mod team about how much money he was making off them, pretending he was making just a little change on the side when he was making quite a substantial amount of money from it, as well as breaking the promise to put most of that cash back into the groups' further development after having multiple conversations with the mods about it. He even went so far as to use some cash for rent money (or so he said), throwing up some big sob story to try and guilt the mods (who were very civil throughout it all) into shutting up, even pretending his "girlfriend" was behind the PC at some point to further try to guilt people into stopping their entirely warranted and reasonable critique by adding to his sob story through this "girlfriend" persona. All throughout this, mind you, he was heavily censoring people left and right, even when all they were doing was asking politely worded questions, by deleting posts, kicking members, etc., even doing stuff like replying to criticisms with lies (sometimes concerning other members / mods) then locking threads, or making them member only then kicking potential detractors from the group (even in the middle of discussions) to silence their reply and make it look like he was right, and they had backed down. Also, all along he was trying to delete his shoddy, amateurish attempts at further manipulation and victim roleplay to further try and hide his true nature / intentions as soon as one person drew negative attention / critique to them.

All this is documented fully in the old thread, and the proof for it is all there, there's no denying it, or talking your way around it, so do everyone a favour and don't bother trying to spin it in some way that makes it all look like he was just a poor misunderstood kid / victim of internet bullies.

Now, his old mod team is gone (and he can no longer profit off of their hard work) and he's desperately clambering to get fresh blood in the group, and new mods who's efforts he can leech off of. He's given people who he previously totally denied mod-ship mod powers (and of course responsibilities) out of desperation, is lying about everything that's happened so far, is calling anyone criticizing him "crazy people" (his exact words) or otherwise suggesting they're all just big mean internet doodieheads who are merely trying to begrudge him a few extra bucks / playing the victim some other way. He's lying to potential new members, giving new mods he's sucked in the task of mass spamming invites (even with bots) all over the place (which can get them in trouble with vALVE, but eh who cares right, as long as it's not his account in jeopardy - for his stance on wanting more members, see Slipslot's latest reply in the comment chain between me and Slipslot, after my chat log post) and trying his best to further act like a doughy-eyed deer in the headlights, merely looking for some help with his group from nice people (because anyone not helping him is a selfish prick, right?) He's set up a shoddy website (that doesn't even work properly, and has most likely been built for him by others that he doesn't credit anywhere) where he's asking for - specifically - monthly "donations" (see the comment chain between me and Slipslot, after my chat log post). Donations, mind you, that he doesn't specify the intended use for, anywhere (obviously because the only intended use is lining his own pockets).

Also, he's now put up a shitty Greenlight game he's not done any work on at all, from 1995, that his uncle worked on, claiming the other guys who worked on it gave approval for him to put it up on Greenlight via his uncle. More attempts to profit off others' work without any form of effort on his part - unless you consider putting something up on Greenlight (couple of clicks here and there) effort.

And then there's that poll that this post started with. "Yes, I would like to greatly honour this hero, this paragon of virtue among men, with my monthly tithing", or "no, I'm a selfish jackass and begrudge him any profit" are, basically, the two options he's giving people. Merely a further attempt at manipulation and guilting people into feeling sorry for him / wanting to feel good about donating to him, which is absolutely transparent, if you're familiar with all these further hints at what kind of guy he truly is.

And for some reason you're defending him, when you quite obviously haven't bothered, at all, to familiarise yourself with this guys' motives / past behaviour, even when it's all laid out for you in the old thread (that the OP here links to). Seems like he's successfully indoctrinated you into his fold. Please, read the old thread in full, see the stuff he tried deleting, see how he acted, before you bother commenting on anything concerning this group / this guy Sammy. And like I said before, don't try to spin this any way, when any fool with half a brain can see right through all the bullshit defences he's put up by putting two and two together.

To try and deny he's a shitty guy, with shitty motives, and even shittier behaviour, especially after this post (where I summarise the old thread, although you should still read it if you're at all interested in the group / Sammy / voicing an opinion here), would only serve to prove what an absolute ignoramus you are, blind to the facts. I reiterate what I said before - he's an enormously manipulative (some of the worst I've seen), lying, spineless weasel with little to no moral fibre in him. And this is coming from someone who grew up with a mother and sister who were both somewhat sociopathic malignant narcissists (see the link for symptoms, as well as this for what, specifically, malignant narcissism is).

He's a guy with strong indications of narcissistic personality disorder that doesn't deserve to be defended by anyone. This guy deserves any flack he catches.

Oh by the way, from the wiki page about narcissistic personality disorder:

To the extent that people are pathologically narcissistic, they can be controlling, blaming, self-absorbed, intolerant of others’ views, unaware of others' needs and of the effects of their behavior on others, and insistent that others see them as they wish to be seen. Narcissistic individuals use various strategies to protect the self at the expense of others. They tend to devalue, derogate and blame others, and they respond to threatening feedback with anger and hostility.

Remind you of anyone / anyone's behaviour? I don't know, like silencing people and their thoughts, denying them their fair say in matters? Twisting arguments in his favour? Yeah, exactly. Also, see the "unprincipled narcissist" subtype. The guy has issues. Either that, or he actually does understand people's frustrations / feelings, and chooses to ignore them / sweep them under the rug. Which would be even worse.

According to the game description, his uncle was one of the people who worked on the original game. Through his uncle, he claims to have gotten permission from the others who worked on it, so is okay to modify and resell their old project.

He tries to 'friend' everyone who has interest towards him. He just wants backers.

Sam's special weapon. Playing the victim.

The guy's only nice to people when there's a vested interest in it for him. He's trying to find support for his group, and new members to profit off of. Nothing more. It seems you've not read the old thread, nor much of this thread, if you can't see through his manipulative behaviour.

Last results I saw before it was pulled was:

Yes, would be an honor - 11%
Maybe - 30%
No, I'm selfish - 59%

Results originally posted by jade in page 1