Destructoid / IndieGoGo Scam Controversy

Here's a good article on this.

A scam is a scam.

I don't care what the cause is for.

The writer should not be suspended for shit.

edited 17th May '13 3:27:14 PM by Thorn14

It sounds like he was damned if he did, damned if he didn't. It also sounds like he thought he was trying to do the right thing and it backfired on him.

So do you support that article and believe that she didn't deserve whatever hatred came at her?

Apparently the truth is a bad thing when it involves a certain group.

Yes, hence why I said it was a good article. Is that such a crazy idea? She's obviously very vulnerable and desperately needs help.

Doesn't give her the right to scam people though.

Look, I can tell that she's going through hard times. But just because she's vulnerable and has really screwed up gender identity issues doesn't suddenly absolve her of personal responsibility in regards to refusing to tell the truth about her campaign when it mattered most.

It was still a scam, which is illegal.

I wish that she never did that and had a better way to get money without scamming people.

And yes, I realize it never succeeded in getting money, but the fact she attempted it wasn't any better. Hopefully she'll get some money some legal way soon enough to pay for all this.

I do feel sorry for her, but that doesn't make any of her actions good in any way.

Alright, this article provided a good backbone to support the idea I said before.

She would have been asked about this anyways, regardless of if Alistair intervened or not. It does surprise me that there's a Double Standard going on, but I'm only able to count that one case with Tropes Vs. Men. The two times I remember when it was a male scammer, they got persecuted just like any other person.

Everyone has the right to privacy. No one has the right to dishonesty.

I feel for Chloe as a LGBT person, but Alistair didn't do anything wrong especially if Chloe's trans status was known beforehand (seems like it was).

I guess the question is did we need to know just why Chloe was collecting this money? While it's tied to sensitive information, I say yes we did. The people who donated that money deserved to know where it was going if they were scammed.

So yeah. I feel bad for Chloe, especially with her suicide attempt but she deceived people and stole in a very public manner.

I feel like this all could have been avoided. Chloe could have started a fund for the SRS and been honest about it on some other crowdfunding site, tried to spread the word, and it probably wouldn't have come to this.

Inb4 someone mentions how hard it is for Chloe to just say it flat out.

It's always something that prevents the easy thing from happening.

I just hope he doesn't end up fired because of this. This sounds like it was an extremely difficult situation that Damned If You Do/Damned If You Don't.

@Rocket Dude: Couldn't agree more. But the bigotry that currently exists would've made that extremely more difficult.

She was best off with finding other regular ways to make money. Basically, anything that doesn't require lying to your audience.

Could have made a post advertising about it on Tumblr, and I'm not saying that to be insulting, but Tumblr is probably good if you need word-of-mouth advertising for something LGBT-related.

Offhand, if she was depressed enough to attempt suicide, she really ought to be consulting with a mental health professional who is experienced and sympathetic with transgender issues. While I won't speak against people's choice to undergo gender change procedures, any decisions involving major, permanent surgery is really something that needs to be approached with a calm and stable mind.

edited 17th May '13 6:03:24 PM by Elle

I can't say I have much sympathy for "Chloe" in this situation, and the only think I hold against Allistair is that he didn't expose the scam sooner.

Why put "Chloe" in quotes?

Lies grow in potential for disaster the more there are. While this is unfortunate for both actors (and both are sympathetic), Chloe should never have lied (and therefore committed fraud) in the first place. Their actions got both sides in trouble with the law, and nothing positive was accomplished. Really, the least sympathetic party over at Destructoid was the LGBT community. A community should both protect and chastise its own.

edited 17th May '13 6:25:56 PM by Colonial1.1

From what I can tell, as offensive as it sounds, I'm guessing he's putting it as that because this is the name we assume the female... version... Okay, I'm no good with discussing the concept of changing names between genders, but that's the point I think he's trying to make. If I am wrong, I am sorry.

I figured that was the case, but I didn't want to make any accusations.

oh no

also wow this whole situation is very messy and complicated

Yeah. That's controversial topics in a nutshell for you.

He was in the right. Sagal had no right to scam those people, whatever the purpose of the money. And it only hurts people in the long run by lowering trust in crowd funding sites.