Wen i originally started on sythe, i was here only for one thing, and that was to make a profit. I started skilling, questing, and mming for tips. Eventually, free trade was removed from RS. Wen this happened, i took a fairly lengthy hiatus from sythe, althouhg occasionally popping in from time to time to harrass some old friends (giverny, darcy, govind, just to name a few)
Id come on to sell or buy a couple things here and there, but i was never anything near what youd consider "active"
Finally, in the beginning of 2011, the announcement regarding the impending return of free trade was made. My first thought at that moment was about sythe. I immediately started becoming active again as i knew that my money making opportunities were about to flourish (which they did.)
Free trade dropped at the perfect time. I was home in cali on leave, and i had just recieved my income tax return. I immediatley dropped $100 into rsgp, and began reselling it. I continued this for several weeks until, alas, my paypal had been limited, i freaked. My payments had all been put on hold (in the thousands of dollars. Remember, i started with only $100. Not bad of a turn around in such a short amount of time.)
I freaked. I feared the worst at this point - an untimely ban from sythe (which was also mere DAYS after my initial promotion to market moderator.) i had to act fast. I immediately started contacting the users who had been affected by my paypal limitation. Im to this day glad ive always kept good logs of my transactions. I explained the situation to all of them, and told them id make reparations as soon as paypal released the payments. By this point i was certain i was going to end up banned for scamming, luckily, everyone i spoke to was uderstanding and grateful for me reaching out to them, to explain the situation.
One scam report finally surfaced. The paypal claims hadnt been resolved yet, so obviously i had no intent on giving the guy anything as i didnt want to have paypal release the cash back to him, and have him essentially scam me. Luckily, the staff were understanding of the situation. Finally, the payments were released. Most back to their rightful owners, but a few were reversed back to me. At this point, i went out of my way to begin sending payments via westen union (as my paypal was still limited) and not only repaying everyone, but paying fees AND sending an extra little bit for the troubles. (reports/thanks found here:
http://sythe.org/showthread.php?p=8190919 //
http://www.sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1024052 //
http://www.sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1048770 )
After that fiasco was all taken care of, i handled things with paypal, and was able to get my account limitation removed under the terms of a rolling reserve. I continues my rsgp shop for several months, eventually netting myself around $20,000 in profit by the time all was said and done.
After my stint as a rsgp reseller, i stopped concentrating on the market as much, and eventually started becoming far more community oriented. By this time i was already a global moderator, and had been for a few months. Around early august, had been promoted to the position of HMM after nick temporarily stepped down from staff. Shortly following, i had finally come to terms with my past.
Back in late 2007, i had scammed. I go away with it too. I kept my mouth shut and kept it silent for years. Finally i had to clear my conscience. I wrote a pardon and was banned shortly after pending the results of the pardon. I believe i was banned for 6 days.... It felt closer to 6 months. Anyone who knew me and spoke to me back then will agree, i was a wreck. I couldnt sleep, could barely eat, and spent hours browsing the forums, only to have harsh reality kick me in the face every time i attempted to reply to a post or a thread.
Finally, the day came. I got off work to multiple messages on msn congratulating me on my pardon. Relief slowly started to settle in. I began working towards re-gaining the trust and respect that i had lost, and trying to regain my position on staff.
---- TO BE CONTINUED (ran out of time to finish writing this)