Really, truly sickening.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Eugene:
[B]I wonder if this is related.

I was wondering the same thing.

OZ;
I think what skofarrell is saying is that when you are in the SPG forum, previously, the announcement would appear-- not as a topic-- but above the topics, towards the top. As of now, " In Memoriam 9/11/01" has replaced it-- and understandably so.

Speaking of in memoriam-- I can't let the day pass without mentioning two friends of mine: NYPD P.O. James Leahy and PA P.O. "J.D." Levi.

Rest in peace, heros.


[This message has been edited by JonNYC (edited 09-11-2002).]

Eye on the ball now, yes thanks. Sorry did not imagine licking on 'In Memoriam 9/11/01' message also linked to the scamster announcement. Did not look in SPG Forum until just before my post.



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~ Glen ~ Calling all United 1K Members - please join .. www.1Kflyers.com

You can also see it by clicking the link in JonNYC's initial post to this thread.

Sorry, I wasn't intending to be cryptic. Earlier today when in the Starwood forum, the "Criminal wanted" announcement was first, before the "Great Escape" and "9/11" ones.

More here as well.

[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 09-11-2002).]

Coming in mid thread is never a good idea, but I have passed on to Randy some details of a German guy who was selling tickets on e-bay, and was using points in some shape or form to do it. We didn't get further than an initial conversation but it was clear that he was going to "transfer" Starwood points to me, and I was going to have to open up an account to do it. What he didn't know was that I already had an account, and was pretty clued up on the promotion (thanks to this site - ) and therefore knew he was up to no good.

I recall reading of the pretty admirable ingenuity of one guy who was running LOTS of eBay Auctions in many categories where he was selling to anyone who'd bid for it, the "secret" to get a Concorde ticket for $1250 - totally legally.

When you "won" the auction, he emailed you Randy's I.F. offer, and the thread links here of how to do all the transfers etc. There was a thread in Buzz about this chap. He made quite a lot of money selling the idea. My point is that a lot of folks paid for this info (that we all got free!) and it follows some were offering the tickets thus obtained on eBay too.

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~ Glen ~ Calling all United 1K Members - please join .. www.1Kflyers.com

skofarrell: to answer your question - i'm not taking all the members of FlyerTalk to task, which is why FT still exists today. I'm simply asking members if you know of this individual? I suppose i could have filld your mailbox with an email asking the same but i didn't feel that was the right thing to do as we have hundreds of thousands of lurkers - some of who have come forward with information. I only posted the announcement in Starwood rather than the more obvious MilesBuzz! or Community as i didn't want to make that huge a splash of it and it is a timed announcement that is scheduled to go away on Friday - up for just a few days. Sorry you feel an affront for this message. Consider this - it already costs me north of $75k a year to provide FlyerTalk to you....would you think that increasing that cost to me by a large percentage is fair? If so - so be it. Again, I've asked for a little help here - similar to the help you may ask when facing a travel problem. As for punishment - i don't think you see any evidence that members of FlyerTalk have been punished. In fact, jsut yesterday we opened up a new promotion allowing you to earn 3,000 miles from United and a similar promotion with American follows. FlyerTalkers asked for this - we followed up. And we continue to offer Starwood points for subscriptions....

[This message has been edited by Randy Petersen (edited 09-12-2002).]

Thanks Randy. We love this board and are willing to help out to keep it going.

Ooops! Randy-- I'm sure it goes without saying-- please feel free to delete this thread (as far as I'm concerned) on Friday, or whenever. Hopefully you've gotten some useful leads from this-- I really, really hope so. I still wish bodily dysfunction on the person who did this, whether that says something terrible about me or not!

I'm sure it also goes without saying-- thank you for FT!!!

In any case, looking forward to the AA promo, got my credit card all "warmed up."

I just had a few days of bodily dysfunction, and I don't even know how to spell Quantas or Concorde. I hope JonNYC's wish didn't get misdirected by the Painful Wish Server.

I think it was obvious to some of us that serious bucks were involved here Randy. I never like to see anyone lose money through actions of con men like this and have done my small bit to hopefully assist in some way.

JonNYC's thread title sums it up very well.

Hopefully there was enough of a trail left for something to turn up.

And thanks for the heads up re the 3,000 United miles .... will go look into that now.

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~ Glen ~ Calling all United 1K Members - please join .. www.1Kflyers.com

Damage? Let's just say it's far greater than 21 subscriptions for one free ticket on the Concorde. In fact, it may likely be enough to take a whole football team along to London.

But at this point - as noted, it's principle. And as many of you know personally - that's the absolute worse that can happen. In fact, I've decided to quit my job and become a bounty hunter. HA!

So far great cooperation from the community, i am humbled.

Randy - I hope that after this thread dies, that you'll follow up with some (minor) information as to the ultimate disposition.

My request isn't out of curiousity, but rather that I'm sure all of us who've been helped by IF and now are harmed through the actions of at least one "dolt" would appreciate hearing that the bad guys got their just deserts!!
Best wishes.

Randy, My comments were not about the call, but more for the tone behind it. You've said that because of the actions of a crook, you're not going to offer Starpoints to any of us anymore. I'm someone who legally bought quite a few Starpoints on the last promotion, and think that punishing all for the actions of a few is wrong. I also don't understand the connection between this crook and FT. Are you saying that the crooked used this board to help perpetuate the fraud?

Regardless of my comments above, thank you for for providing this board. I applaud your call for help, I hope FTers have info to track this guy down, I'm sicked that you've been taken, and I wish you godspeed in catching the crook.