To be honest, only seeing that poll proves the creator is an asshat.
The answers clearly are biased towards paying by making you call yourself selfish if you don't want to pay.
Glad I never got involved in this group and I'm even more sure now that I never will
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I use store credit only referrals at my own deal posting group but all credit earned goes back into giveaways at my giveaway group. I think referrals are fine so long as you're honest and open about where you use them. Something he has never been.
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yeah, I left the group as well... I wasn't even using it since I bookmarked isthereanydeal.com
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+1 I even have them mail me my wishlisted games deal, thus the huge number of games in my wishlist :P
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Just gunna post some stuff I found on the website support discussions.
=^[(O){d_b}(O)]^= 15 hours ago
Yah sorry, we might be actually experiencing attacks on the site due to all the harassment I and Hookups has been receiving due to other groups promoting to harass us
8bitGuru 13 hours ago
I'm sorry to hear that, I had no idea Hookups was getting harassed so frequently. Thanks for putting in the work for us, I appreciate it. If there was a paypal donation banner on the new site, I would use it hint
=^[(O){d_b}(O)]^= 13 hours ago
There is a PayPal donation button on the site, there is also a feature with the donation to make it monthly if people desire. Thank you for your support. Just a heads up we are working on the server right now, people are attacking the site right now so that is why people can't access it. With this drama people are trying to destroy all my hard work. Ill let you guys know when the site is fixed. To the people that have ordered while the site is down, all orders will always be honored.
Just so everyone is aware, NO ONE is "Attacking" the site. He is simply using it as an excuse to 1: get more sympathy and 2: as an excuse for the servers being down.
Also I liked that someone saying that they would be happy to donate wasn't enough, he had to make sure to point out that there was a donate monthly option!
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Screenshots please. Remember the number one Sammy rule.
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Also - "other groups promoting to harass us"? I'd love to see him try to prove that. Since, you know, there is no proof of something that never happened. Oh and "groupS"? As in, plural?
Damn bullshit victim card pulling. Unbelievable that people are falling for such a simple deception. Doesn't anyone reading that think to ask for evidence before jumping on the bandwagon? Or instantly think "well why would those other groups be so interested in being negative towards this guy / his site?"
Usually if someone's in the middle of such a big shitstorm, there's gonna be a reason..
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A few claims that have never been challenged (as there's no evidence to prove either way) is that Sammy has received "Death Threats", is harassed and bullied. I always thought maybe this was true (although certainly not from me or any of the groups I'm involved in), but now I'm starting to think those claims are based on a few things I've seen myself. Allow me to explain:
Death Threats: This one came out of no where and was first brought up after this comment was made in the first SG thread back in September Click Meh. Since no other proof has been provided (and trust me, he's been asked to show proof of the threats), I believe he took this as a direct threat of death rather than the way it was intended. Which was that he was only so many bad choices away from someone actually wanting to hurt him.
Harassment: I've never personally harassed Sammy or Hookups since getting up and leaving the group, however he insists in certain announcements/discussions that Opium Pulses (my gaming community) are solely behind the harassment. Could he mean the announcements that we posted to alert people of what he had ALREADY announced? Here and here? If so, then I apologise for sharing the info in our gaming news group. (none of this was shared in our giveaway, trading or savings group; which are much larger communities!)
Bullying: As for this, the only thing I've seen that he's claimed to be a form of bullying is curious people entering chat with their own opinions, asking him questions he'd rather not answer (equating in them not only being banned from chat, but booted from the group too). He also tried to get the original SteamGifts thread torn down too, so maybe he considered that to be bullying? However let's not forget that he actually tried starting fights in the original thread before he came to his senses and deleted all the evidence, as you can see in this lucky screen grab.
Either way, I've since come to my own personal conclusion that he's full of it. From head to toe.
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http://i4.minus.com/ibljTZ0wJvACir.png
That link doesn't want to work for me. Got another?
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There's no tiny image in the top left hand corner? (click to zoom in) If you miss it it's easy to look like a blank page. Sadly that's the only record we have of his comments. If not, maybe try another browser?
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Notice how it goes from "might be experiencing attacks on the site" one moment, to two hours later "people are attacking the site right now". No evidence provided, obviously. Just an excuse for his freewebz website not being able to handle more than 30 users online at once.
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Hey Ms. Clinton, you should check out my reply to Herpulese here :)
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Why is Valve even allowing this group to exist? It's a clear cut violation of the TOS. Pretty soon, people would be creating their own online store to sell shit already.
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Look at his online "store". He's got no licence to sell them.
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Not for profit, not above a certain amount of total revenue, and not without paying taxes once a certain amount of profit has been made. You've never heard of the term "authorized reseller"?
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I couldn't help but see the resemblance in these two situations.
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His "girlfriend" that came to his defense in a few posts during the previous Hookups fiasco that led to the departure of the staff.
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I'm actually kinda curious, who is this "renjility" and why only the owwner has this "good deals" from renjility ??
cause that's the main reason i join hookups, to get good deals from renjility...
if other ex admin can make a contact and become the deals middle-man to renjility like the owner then there's no more reason to join hookups...
and if all of this is true (i'm just trying to be fair here, not taking sides to the owner or the ex-admins) why does steam or valve don't do anything to the group or the owner account ??
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Renjility sells his games elsewhere outside of Hookups (as do the rest of them), Sammy's exclusives aren't exclusives at all. However I can pretty much speak for most of the ex-admin when I say we won't be selling games via these sellers. Not that there's anything shady about them.
Edit: We do advertise Renjility's deals at our group now though, and if it's easier for you, you can do it through there. It's the same service as what Hookups offered, we just don't claim it to be exclusive. You can find his deals here
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thanks for the explanation :)
for all this time, i always think that we can only deal with renjility thru sammy only, because we have to say the "magic" world to renjility when purchasing from him to get good deals, you know the "Hey I'm Sammy's friend and bla bla bla..."
Now i know i'm too naive all this time, lol
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You don't need Hookups to get deals from Renjilty. He posts the same deals on Steam Trades and in some cases people can get a better deal by dealing directly and cutting the middle man out completely. Of course no one on Hookups would tell you this because McScammy loves getting his cut more than getting you a good deal.
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thanks for the info on renjility's steam profile phyre :)
the way you, slipslot, and other ex hookups admins replies on this thread has proven which one is the actual people who runs hookups for all this time... what you guys did is truly "from gamers to gamers"... :)
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Here's his thread on Steam Trades if anyone was interested in purchasing stuff from him. His last post in that thread was 6 days ago. So it's still active.
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Most likely. I've bought from the guy before and being associated with Hookups right now can't be doing his rep any good.
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hi guys, renjility here. I don't usually check forums so thanks to all the traders who notified me about this - sad to see the group going downhill like this. I cannot support what has happened so have removed myself from Hookups. I'll still be around on Steamtrades.
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That's respectful of you. From what I've seen people have been actively buying from his site so you easily could have stayed to increase your sales. I bought Hitman Absolution from you earlier in the year and I always thought you were way too professional to be associated with a group like Hookups.
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I'm not buying this. This whole thread is exaggerated and in my opinion has no place on SteamGifts which is a website that's supposed to be respectful for everyone and not encourage defaming of anyone. I'm surprised the admins are fine with it. Yes, I see that poll, I also think that wording used is awful and asking for donations in such way is not at all subtle. I can't say I like it and yet I simply can't support pointless hate like this and this whole "let's bring the group down" idea. SG admins, are you fine with this seriously?
The fact you don't like something about a group is not a good enough reason to go trying to bring it down, when it doesn't really cause any harm. Does the owner hack, steal, cause you to lose money in some other way? No. He's asking for donations. Last time I checked it wasn't a crime to do that. How many people will send any donations really anyway? I doubt many. It's silly to think all those 30k members even check the group much. Most of them (myself included) just joined it randomly when an invitation came in and then ignored it most of the time.
Now I'm not sure how the owner of that group is going to use the money if somebody actually donates, but I have to question your credibility when you say he uses them to pay his rent using revenue from referral links, simply because even with 30k members referral links on amazon can't get you that significant amount... that's a ridiculous claim. How the money is spent exactly I have no idea. But personally I'm far from having any problem with somebody who gets a little money on referrals, since it doesn't really make any difference to me if I go through a referral or not. It's not like I pay money for this. Although admittedly I never cared to click on any links the group posted anyway, so I must have been a terrible member, lol.
Having said all this... I know why you may not like things about this group. I just think the proportions of the reaction to things happening there exceed all reason. If I don't like something, I don't participate and leave instead of launching an open attack and trying to have a "collective impact".
I'm generally known for not going with the flow, so unlike many others I'm the last one to buy stories against others. I was hurt in the past too by a person spreading some crap about me. Many people believed him because he made perfect sense. I don't support doing that to anyone.
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It seems you missed a few comments. No one accused the guy of paying his rent with referral money, the guy admitted it! Please, don't read a few hateful comments and think you understand everybody and their reasoning for the things they say. One of the members touched on everything the guy is KNOWN to have done in the past in one of the comments you forgot to read.
"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."
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"I'm generally known for not going with the flow, so unlike many others I'm the last one to buy stories against others. I was hurt in the past too by a person spreading some crap about me. Many people believed him because he made perfect sense. I don't support doing that to anyone."
Except, err... there's no stories here. Everything posted has been fact, backed up with screenshots of Sammy's posts. If it was just rumours and nonsense, we'd have closed it down.
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Yeah, take better care to inform yourself next time before you "go against the flow" just to be that guy.
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So, I visited Hookups chat...
I got banned. I did nothing except say hello, mention I wanted to talk to Sammy.
Know what I was gonna do? I was going to offer an olive branch to Sammy. If he had proof of anyone harassing him, he could PM me with screenshots and I would suspend them on SG, ensure it is known that that is not acceptable.
Know what I'm not doing to do now?
Enjoy your grave, Sammy. You're doing a mighty fine job of digging it.
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Been ignoring this thread because I don't really have the time to sift through 300+ comments for the time being, and I figured others would do their part to say what needed to be said anyway (in particular those directly involved in the past). Aside from the element of absurdity in that poll that set this into motion, I started this thread because I really don't like to see people used, manipulated, deceived, or otherwise taken advantage of. It happened before, the former admin staff of Hookups quit over it, and it probably would happen again if Sammy got the chance. Now it seems like he wants to takes things a step further to 'the next level' by bilking money directly from users. Well, these things are not okay. He has shown time and time again through both his past and current actions that he is not someone to be trusted and is in it for one thing, and one thing only. I just don't like to see or hear of people being deceived and taken advantage of in such an immoral fashion. Short of Valve being presented with enough reason to shut down the group for good, the best way to stop or prevent as much as that as possible is for everyone to spread the word amongst their friends and raise awareness to leave the group. Thus my original message.
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Please, ban him for good on SteamGifts. His presence here is disgraceful.
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It isn't falling to his level, that's a ridiculous premise for an argument to remove him from this community. Removing him from SteamGifts is removing a tumor before it metastasizes. He is using this site, and this thread in particular, to ban anyone in the Hookups group that comments here in any way that isn't defending him or excusing him. Yes, he digs his own grave doing it, good. Why should he have access to something to use nefariously? Limit the damage he can do, and prevent him from using this site for giveaways (ha! he doesn't use his ill-gotten gains to share among Hookups members), and from entering giveaways to win games, since he clearly doesn't need to win games when he is building a massive game library through his shady referral gains.
This is only my opinion. No one has to agree with it. It may be a slippery slope, I don't know. What I do know is that his presence here does not add anything positive. It detracts from the site and the community. Other people receive bans for far less.
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Banning him won't do anything about him targeting people from this thread.
You can always log out to view the forum.
I don't think he has a presence here at all besides these threads.
I agree with the rest but nonetheless, he hasn't done anything wrong here yet, I think
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I'm not going to suspend him when he hasn't done anything to warrant a suspension here.
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That's what he does. You don't even have to say anything. If he's mad he'll just ban you for no reason. Sucks that you only tried to help. I'm sure he'll make up a half assed excuse on why banning you was justified and not wrong in the slightest. =/
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Nah, he's posting on my wall now, trying to undo the damage.
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The funny thing is, if Sam was getting death threats and harrassment why hasn't Valve banned anyone over it yet? Jona/Toast got a year community ban over his minor retaliation and I know Steam support takes death threats serious. Yet no one's stepped up to say they were banned by Valve for whatever Sam keeps obviously trying to lie about.
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I mean specifically regarding the banning of Boobofatt (joke based on sammy's claims, the quote is his since i have to label things based on my other post about wording) "Good job to whoever changed the posts from Bobofett" to be totally innocuous with maybe even a tone of disapproval I know he was cheering the haters and encouraging harassment lol;)
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Who wants to put bets down that Sammy will take that last part of Jade's original post as another "Death Threat"?
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Am I the only one enjoying reading his holy gospel?
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Have to say, him saying he's done talking to you except in the group chat is pretty ridiculous. A person asking for help doesn't generally have much place to request it on their terms in such a way
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Exactly. It's like "if you REALLY want to help me come over to my house where I have complete control and I feel most comfortable". He also probably doesn't like that anyone can read Jade's profile page and wants a private chat to propagate his lies.
I found ShadowForge's post on Jade's profile equally ironic. Sam's supposedly a grown adult yet someone on his own staff has to tell him not to instaban people because he's upset. It's the same thing that happened before. I can bet on how long it takes that ShadowForge to say F-it, I'm not doing this anymore. You can't put a leash on a power abuser who has absolute power. It just doesn't work.
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Seems Renjility's games have been pulled from the Hookups store and Sammy has hidden the "Hookups Exclusive" thread in the group. What a complete mess.
He's still got 2-3 members spamming invites though so that likely makes him feel better :)
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I love that all that is left is the overpriced stuff. Losing Renjility must have been a big blow for Sammy.
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Oh god the "maybe"!! I nearly heatbutted my keyboard when I saw that. That's got me through the day :)
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It's just him playing the victim all over again.
He said "maybe" just because he wants his army to help him out against all the haters, he's not going to shut his group down while he still make some profit out of it.
:EDIT: Aaand... I got banned :D
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Next time think twice before you have an opinion.
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In all honesty, I don't think he's going to close the group down, too much of a cash pig for him to resist.
I'm not so sure about the harassment and stuff, though, unless he counts this thread as one (he probably does). But the internet is vast and a few might have done that.
I think that this is just a ploy to gather sympathy.
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This small thread he counts as harrassing his mom, his uncle, his girlfriend, and his whole family. Sam was the one who said he doesn't need any of us. Even kicks regular members saying that it's their loss. Honestly, I'm surprised by the people who think Sam is selflessly running the group for no gains.
He hasn't even been posting any of the latest deals this past week. It's all "Join the Hookups website" and "make a MONTHLY donation". He's not doing anyone favors.
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Read some of the responses before Sam deletes them!
He tries SO hard to get the members involved it's actually hurting him and people are leaving because he can't ignore it. Sucks that he's making announcements with that.
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He claims to be shutting the group down, and instead of leaving people to voice their opinion on the matter, he deletes all the comments he doesn't agree with and kicks them from the group, my question to Sammy is this:
WHY?
You're shutting down the group for goodness sake, yet you still seem hell bent on 'cleansing' the group of people who don't have the same mind-set as you. You do realise the only people on your side are people who aren't aware of who you really are, or are too stupid to understand your motives. Money doesn't mean everything, man. I suggest you drop the cash cow, and continue doing the only thing you said you once loved about Hookups "getting to know and playing games with your friends" cause the only people who are likely mega upset with the news of the group shutting down (maybe, LMAO) are the people who don't realise there are MUCH cleaner communities out there that do it without thinking of other ways to grab easy cash.
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doesn't look like alot of bans...only 4(which is low for sammy considering), mostly its other stuff.
and check that history page again tons of people just left right after it was posted. the drama is not helping him. If he is feeling harassed and truly convinced himself the hate is unjustified lies just report to steam and ignore it, get on with your life man, this passive aggressive fighting only brings it to the attention of tons of people who otherwise didn't see the steamgifts posts and makes sammy look crazy
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Lest we forget the multiple screenshots of proof against him. If he really wants to salvage this now, he should own up to his faults, try and fix those, and actually move forward rather than sitting around in all this. Not that I expect that to happen especially now when he's pushing more and more people away, but such is how it goes, I guess.
Edit: And deleting posts certainly isn't going to make things go away
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The amount of people actually supporting him now is almost rock bottom.
Which is strange cause you'd think him cleansing the group after every "negative" comment would have the opposite effect.
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And most of the posts in that screenshot have already been deleted, incidentally
Edit: As with this and the previous announcement entirely, it seems
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Just now, Sammy made two announcements in Hookups, one where he whined about "harassers" (calling people posting here harassers and suggesting we were the ones who were harassing / bullying him, which is not only not true, but the harassing is something he has still not provided proof of, even when asked multiple times, to begin with) making him want to close the group down, and one where he flat-out lies about everything that's happened so far. Then, he deleted the two announcements.
You'll have to click the little gear icon on the top right and view them in full resolution to be able to read them, but you really should read them and see just how big of a lying sack of shit Sammy is. In the "closing the group" announcement, he only added in the links to this thread etc., after many people began putting the links in the comments themselves. All of who got booted from the group, along with their comments deleted.
He's just trying to drum up sympathy (which he - unfortunately - largely successfully does, as the comments show) by kicking up some drama, acting out the victim role some more, lying about everything that's happened so far, giving half replies to things raised in this thread and the old "Drama at Hookups" thread (and lying some more in those replies). Then, he deletes the announcements once his goal has been reached - drumming up sympathy, trying to keep his members, and potentially defuse negative feelings some people that might have caught wind of some drama might have. See the comments from half-informed members saying things like "oh it's OK you get referral money" to defend him. Exactly what he wants - people to focus on an issue that isn't the real reason for him catching so much flack, then lie about that issue. Him getting referral money was never the issue at hand per se, but his lies about using them, how much he was making off them (claiming he got $50 over many months when later he said he was using it to pay rent money, so was making in the hundreds), what he claimed he was doing / going to do with that money (claimed it was going back in to the group's development / group promo. giveaways, that never got made, then later claimed he was using it for rent money), censorship (locking discussions to members only, responding to concerns / questions of members with lies, then kicking them out of the group to feign winning an argument), treating members / mods like crap, leeching off others' hard work and claiming credit for it all - but many people who haven't seen all of what went and is going on think him getting rewarded with referral cash is the issue at hand, that people are just bitter.
This is why shit like this needs to be posted. The guy is stringing innocent people along, lying to all, using others as his personal army, abusing their good faith and trust to gain sympathy and support that he entirely doesn't deserve.
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See my earlier replies to Herpulese for a summary of events so far.
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Thanks for the screen shots. I was out to lunch when the other thread was up. =)
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to be fair I think you misjudged what happened there....seems more impulsive/stupid than calculating
I think it wasn't so much about getting his message out and denying the opportunity for counterarguments, instead that he deleted the announcements more to run away from the people saying(more than could easily be deleted and kept up with so it was safer to close, he did delete a couple between pictures) that they're leaving if he doesn't cut the sympathy act and start posting deals again because thats why they were there and they were tired of this("i come here for deals, i have a tv for drama" "what is this run by 13 yearold girls?" "you sound like you're on your period" "you stopped posting deals because you were busy with work and school but you have time for this?" "i joined for deals. I haven't seen a deal for awhile but theres all this drama" "cool story bro, ya done and back to getting us exclusive deals now?" ect a few were even posting links for other groups in case he went through with it and shut down) not once a quota of sympathy was successfully reached.
he deleted them when he realized what a bad idea it was...backed up with how he reposted several bundle announcements immediately after doing so(indiegala limited was in such a rush the post was wrong) as if to say "drama done i'm doing what i'm here for again please don't leave me" this was damage control not mission accomplished, the numbers leaving jumped after he posted those 2 announcements, a full history page of people gone at once
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You must mean this announcement.
Everything there is thoughtfully-worded propaganda (or in some cases even outright deception) that is meant to try and sway the undecided to his side or assuage any doubters. The ironic thing is, that for many of the values and sentiments that he 'preaches' in that message, his actions in the past or those now being performed 'behind closed doors' are a purposeful or flagrant disregard/violation for those very same values. It's the epitome of hypocrisy.
Anyhow, glad to see someone took the red pill.
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Maybe not a quota, but enough misinformed people who were posting stuff like
That was his goal when posting the announcements - garner sympathy amongst some / defuse doubts some might have. The deletion was surely due to him cutting and running as you suggest, but also (in the case of the announcement that was full of lies) to hide his lies, once they'd had the intended effect. Nay-sayers can just get removed from the group / their comments deleted. This idea is backed up by, well, all his previous actions so far? :)
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I also believe he did it to weed out some of the nay-sayers too.
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Surely. But the main motivation was manipulation, I'm sure. The rest was a bonus. Why else would he first say "OMG such haters, wehhh, gonna close down the group, wehhh" then delete that not half an hour later?
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To make it easier for people:
Shutdown (maybe?) http://i.imgur.com/p7ECs3r.png
"Rumours" http://i.imgur.com/4bKrjxC.png
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Yeah, the direct links are more convenient.
Anyway, let's be real here. He never had any intention of shutting anything down. It was just another manipulative ploy with him playing the victim yet again to try and accomplish 2 things:
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He's a good fella. I'll give him all my support.......maybe
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Well that thread is 3 months old now and is in line with the original SteamGifts thread.
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Shows what you know.. As Shad0WeN said, the first time the group got shut down, it was due to promoting sites selling Origin and Uplay products.
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I honestly don't remember at this point (had detailed records of the incident, but eventually deleted them out of frustration). I do recall that I posted the notice in the game's specific forum, and it wasn't there more than a couple hours before a mod deleted it and banned me.
For what it's worth, I get the feeling the ban came from a noob moderator who didn't know what he was doing. I appealed the ban and sent Steam support an objection, but they flat-out refused to reverse it and closed the case, citing the mod's "right" to make on-the-fly decisions. Seemed like just another case of Valve's "circle the wagons" mentality to me.
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After reading the entire thread, I really think a lot of you need to tone things down. I'm not in any way supporting Hookups, but I do not support people who refuse to accept that they are harrassing him either. If the group is such a problem for you, then leave, and move on, because otherwise, you are making it be more of a problem for you. When it gets to the stage where people say "Oh, he isn't being harrassed, the lying sack of shit", It's kinda stupid. Think things through a bit more, please?
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I could maybe buy that the odd random troll might harass him because that's what lonely trolls do, but I seriously doubt there would any organized or concerted effort to harass him en-masse, on personal level, or otherwise (nor should anyone advocate this). You speak of people just leaving the group and moving on, and in it's simplest terms that is what we should all like to see and why I posted this in the first place.
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Read this thread back a bit more. Count the names that Sammy has been called in this thread. Count the times someone has spammed, or harrassed him in his group's chat, and then moaned about being banned for that. And that's the proof. I'm not saying it's isolated to this thread, and I'm not saying everyone who was banned deserves it, but it certainly gives you an idea of things.
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Perhaps, but also consider the people he's rapidly jumped on, the unjust and unwarranted kicks and bans, and the fact that kicking or banning isn't really a solution to something like this; quite the contrary, I'd argue. By no means should people attack him, certainly, but him being so quick to the gun doesn't exactly help things. It's just going to get people more annoyed at him.
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Right, because stating personal opinions on such a deplorable asshole and calling him names that he entirely inspired himself by his own shitty behavior, on a public forum, with proof to back said opinions up, counts as harassment. Sure. In other news, the sky is red.
Also, he claims people have been spamming him en masse, trolling him personally, sending death threats to him, his GF, and his uncle, and furthermore has claimed that the ex-mods, and their new Opium Pulses community, have actually sent some of these goons out to do all that. When asked for proof of this so people with power could take appropriate action, multiple times, none has been provided. Guess what? 99% sure it's all bullshit meant to rustle up more sympathy, just like most of his victim roleplay.
As for "count the times someone has spammed, or harrassed him in his group's chat, and then moaned about being banned for that.." Umm, I see only a handful of people doing that, 2 or 3, and they weren't moaning about being banned - they expected it, and welcomed the ban. And there's far more people that joined the chat and acted civil and polite, merely trying to ask questions, and still getting banned.
He is ruining other peoples' good name, other groups' reputation, harassing people himself, and spreading lies and disinformation. Oh and let's not forget how he's manipulating and lying to innocent people that he's stringing along like his own personal army, deceiving them into supporting him, potentially gaining money off them. Don't defend this jackass man. Come on. I know you love always being contrarian for the hell of it, but come the f- on dude.
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Right, that makes perfect, absolute sense. To someone trying to be holier-than-thou, a sanctimonious poser trying to keep his "clothes clean" as it were, to try and appear to be the bigger man, purely for ego. I reiterate what I already implicitly said - people being mad at him is entirely warranted, posting some vitriol is entirely logical, and there's nothing wrong with it, provided it isn't the sole focus of someones' post, but rather part of an expression that includes a reasonable explanation for said vitriol. The point isn't that people can't make solid arguments without swearing. They can, very well. The swearing / names called aren't an integral part of any argument against Sammy. The point is that they don't want to. And they have every reason not to want to filter their expression, for Sammy's sake.
It's not like people have been mindlessly bashing him, and purely insulting him for the sake of insulting him (not everyone, at least). Or are you now suggesting that people limit their very human expression merely to appease people like you, trying to find holes to poke in peoples' otherwise solid posts so they can act like they're somehow better than them?
To say something as block-headed and stubborn as "don't swear, or I am ignoring you and everything you say, no matter how logical or fact-based it is, regardless of its' value, because of one or two words I don't like in your post" is far more childish than a few cuss-words here and there as part of a post that actually says something valid, and almost unbelievably recalcitrant and pointless (let alone unfairly censoring to people with valid anger and resentment) - especially when you've not posted anything of merit or value in the thread other than bashing people who are understandably mad at a guy for doing truly underhanded things.
In short - grow up. People swearing has a time and a place, and this is a perfect example of such a time and place. Even without swearing, you have a bevy of other negative, ill-spirited words you can conjure up to insult someone, heck you can even do so using very clean words, in an intelligent manner. Add something useful to the discussion, actually reply to the points raised, especially if you don't like the language used to the point of mindlessly outright dismissing anything said that includes language you object to. Set an example, or stop complaining for the sake of complaining.
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I'm not saying that there aren't a few bad apples who may have handled things the wrong way, but asking legitimate questions which deserve straight answers and expressing your opinion are not things that are harassment, and certainly not in some random forum thread where the 'subject' has shown no presence.
If Sammy would care to show us some screenshots of people coming to him and actually 'harassing' or threatening him them I'm sure we would be open to that and would like to know of it. Until then I just don't buy it. The problem with Sammy is that his idea of 'harassment' is anyone who dares to disagree with him.
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I wasn't saying those things were harrassment, I was saying the people who posted about spamming the group profile, needlessly calling Sammy names, and nothing else, and so forth? They are harrassing him. Someone added me earlier today, asking me for an invite to the Hookups group, but the only reason they wanted in, was to insult Sammy. That is not on, at all. He was not previously a member of the group, and obviously hadn't been banned before, therefore, the only reason was him bandwagonning.
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Maybe he was merely wanting to get in the group to ask questions / get in contact with Sammy to challenge him politely. Of course you don't think so, and neither do I quite frankly (and I agree that you handled rightly by not inviting him), but outright saying that wanting to get in the group is wrong, is wrong.
Sammy created that situation where ambiguity in intent of people is relevant - like the guy you mention - himself, when he decided to ignore questions posed on a public forum, censor and delete any discussion in his own group that might have answered potential questions from people, lie about things that happened before when there's threads up with objective proof of what he did (thus giving people motivation to try getting in the group, be it to troll, or be polite and just challenge his behavior), and not accept any friend requests from anyone. The only way to contact him, now, is through his groups' chat. And even there, he acts like a power hungry / corrupt douche.
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"Can you give me an invite to the group so I can spam that ***'s group?"
Yes, I actually had to censor a word there. Because if I said that word on this site, I'd be banned. But don't worry, I'm sure you're right, he wanted a civil discussion with "that ***".
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Although this specific example is unfortunate - and again; I agreed that it was good not to hand him that invite, even considering a theoretical neutral request from him - it does not diminish the veracity and logic in what I said.
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You can, however, get banned for calling people fags. However, as it was a quote, Deiru would have been fine.
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If he is being harassed, then he should obtain proof, and report it to steam. The problem is, that there is very little people who care enough or are immature enough to actually harass him. I think the most he is getting is a random troll here and there, which in my opinion, is not harassment. MOST people in this thread are just expressing their opinions and nothing more.
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And you base this off of what proof, exactly? Or rather, let me ask you - what do you define as "going further"? Posting a comment with less than polite wording, and some insults in it? Because you know, that is not going further. That is all still part of posting an opinion. Especially when it's not merely baseless name calling, but rather valid expression of anger, resentment, and frustration based on valid concerns and judgements.
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After the previous fiasco and given the tainted history of the group, this should hardly come as a surprise to anyone who knows of it:
Subscription fee poll [link to original]
Hookups Announcement [link to original]
Apparently the revenue he generates 'under the table' from the ~30,000 group members by inserting disguised referral links into all of the Amazon deal links, which he uses to "pay his rent" (previously in his own words), is not enough for his tastes. Making money off of the group members is what it is really about for the owner and always has been -- and without them knowing about it. And because the group owner has control over everything he can censor and delete whatever he wants to cover up the truth of what has happened previously and continues to transpire.
Edit: As a matter of further clarity, a big issue with the previous drama that went on at Hookups was about him not being upfront and honest about where the money is/was going, as well as being unwilling to tell anyone (even his own previous staff members before they all quit) about how much it is/was. He had people doing the work of scouring for deals and putting together announcements for him, and then he would go in later after the fact and edit their posts to put in his own referral links, which they understandably took issue with when they found out. That's just the tip of the iceberg as they say. If you want to know more you can always read up in the link above.
To anyone who may have a friend in the group, I encourage all of you to let your friends know (by posting on their Steam profile wall) of the story behind Hookups and the exploitative practices and hidden agenda of it's owner. Encourage them to leave the group and spread the word in the same way. If we all committed to doing this we could have a collective impact on things!
Edit: I got banned from the group lol. No surprise there. Truthfully, it actually happened shortly before I made this thread, when I simply posted "Agree 100%" as a reply to someone who left a comment in the group regarding the subscription fee poll. So, you see how it is.
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