I am an extremely tolerant person and very rarely post regarding matters that don't make me feel good.
On this occasion however I am stunned by what I have just witnessed and feel obliged to warn the community immediately.
steemit.chat - The post promotion site
If you use Steemit.chat (which you should be!) it is normal practice to list the people you have upvoted, alerting them to your action. And the unspoken rule is that one at this stage politely upvotes the person back.
THE SCAM
Moments ago I received one such message in the #postpromotion feed from someone (let's call him User X), my name listed in a group of many and an indication that he had upvoted my last post there. And in my usual manner, I thanked User X for his vote and quickly returned the favour.
An hour later I receive a message from someone much more pro-active than myself who had taken the time to check up on User X.
He had checked every single post listed as having been upvoted by User X and found that in fact, User X had voted for NONE OF THEM!
I applaud the person who took the time to check each post associated with this list of names and I feel sadness for the person who uses this deceiving technique to get upvotes.
I have never downvoted a post before. Until now.
I am tempted to give the name of User X but will instead be watching him like a hawk. If he continues to use this trick to gain upvotes I will continue to flag him down.
That is the wonderful organic thing about Steemit... it can sense the poison in the body and it can push it out.
THE JOKE AT THE END!
Okay, this is kinda funny. I was just about to click post on this one when I had a moment of realisation.
User X had in his wisdom given himself a different username on steemit.chat to the username he has on steemit, so when checking to see if he had upvoted me, based on the username in front of me, it appeared as if he had not.
So... lesson learned. I have un-flagged his post and apologised for jumping to conclusions.
But please folks...
use the same username on all steemit associated platforms
and you will avoid confusing situations like this!
And perhaps if you feel so inclined, randomly check up on people claiming to have upvoted you using steemnow just to be sure everyone is being honest.
Steemit is a living breathing organism. And like I said, it has the power to eject the poison, downvoting you into oblivion.
I have seen it happen to many copy/paste spammers who refused to acknowledge their source.
So, treat people with respect and use the power of your downvote wisely.
