Onlinehumidor.com

Why would the money that was given to OLH need to be returned?
[i]
8. Due Diligence, it is your responsibility as a participant in an online trade to protect yourself as either the buyer or the seller. I make no representation as to the honesty or veracity of anything posted here by others. [b]Before you part with your currency or items you should have done your own research to know that the other end of the trade is coming through. [/b] Some of the folks over at Cigar Family maintain something they call a Scumbags list. I’d suggest that you look it over. Take the time to look for references, here or on other sites. Almost anyone selling something of high value here will probably have a profile and a reputation on one or more of the other forums out there. The point of all of this is to be cautious, there are scammers in the world, do what you can not to be a mark.[/i]

[quote author=moki link=topic=9304.msg51720#msg51720 date=1304955162]
For what it's worth, a number (most?) of the people instrumental in outing Triple Ligero do not regularly participate here on OLH.

It's worthy of consideration how long these sales would continue bolstered by the positive comments of folks who traded with him here.  The real danger is to people who are new to the hobby.

I'm not sure this is really an example of the board working as it should, as you mentioned earlier.
[/quote]

Moki, the reality is that [u]most[/u] of the people who can really tell the difference or really know cigars aren't buying here.  I've rarely ever bought or sold anything here in this version or any past versions.  At some point I figured out what I liked and where to get it and that's it.  

Point being, you are right, the expertise that brought this down is not typically resident here.  Looking back at what happened with TL, it should have been obvious to anyone looking (I wasn't) that there was no way anyone was getting that much of that kind of stuff.  Your FFOX collection is probably second to none, but there is no way you could be doing 5'ers and splits on that stuff.  Pretty much the same with this stuff, thought the Habanos stuff has been made in greater quantities.

The bottom line is you're correct, it was less the board and more the community.  The board worked because the community made it work, and eventually that's what happens, and the board didn't interfere with it.  

If the guy had quit after selling one or two varieties, and come back 6 months later for another dip he might have gone on for an incredibly long time before he got noticed.  In health and safety it's called a PEL (permissible exposure limit).  He exceeded the PEL for HTFs, too much exposure in too short a time. The truth is that there is nothing to stop someone from trying again, and I don't see how there can be.  

As long as there have been boards there have been guys willing to take advantage.  I joined CF a long time ago, and there had already been a number of scammers, some of whom made off with a fair chunk of change.  Boot and Terbaque (or however he spelled it) predated me, and the board was really only about a year old. People have to beware, most don't get taken twice.  


Edit:[i]Another thing not to lose sight of, I do maintenance and delete all threads in the TSBC that have not been posted on in the last 30 days, I last did that maintenance on May 6th I think, there are currently 495 threads in the TSBC.  I'm sure there are still some TL threads in there, but there are a few hundred others from honest folks.  This is also the first major problem in the four + years of this version of OLH.  It's not the end of the online cigar world. [/i]

I moved the posts here re: responses in the TSBC to the thread in the general forum to try to keep this thread on topic.

For what it's worth, not banning TL has allowed people to attempt to get refunds, which is good.

But it's also allowed TL to continue hawking his cigars via PM... which he's definitely continuing to do.  Which is bad.