Due to some spam in the reviews for GallantFx's new offshore branch at gcmfx.com, I've verified that 3 forums accounts were created from inside Gallant's offices.
mpfinnigan and kzhen were 2 of those accounts. There was a fake review for Gallant left from an Ahzhen on June 16.
The third account's username was forextrader17. Another fake review was left that was credited to a Forextrader17 on June 17th.
I am deeply disappointed in Gallant/GCMFX for these activities.
Do you think these nicks were leading up to providing an endorsement, or had they already done so elsewhere? What they said in this thread was pretty subtle.
I agree that it is unethical to sock-puppet in order to
deceive people. It's done all the time, however, to
teach people. It's the socratic method, afterall, right? That is, it's asking questions you already know the answer to in order to engage the audience and get them to think along the lines you want them to be thinking. How many "FAQ" lists/pages are ACTUALLY composed of questions that had been frequently asked? Aren't FAQ pages usually just ways of presenting information in a back-and-forth dialog form? (Obviously real questions that are frequently asked are usually answered in this section as well). Anyway, do you get my point?
What would be FPA's official position, then, on drawing the line between deceptive "scamming" via sock-puppeteering and didactic role-playing with the honorable intentions of teaching or even promoting one's legitimate business? I would suggest making new participants correctly identify themselves when they sign up (yes, real first and last name, e-mail (maybe excluding hotmail and the like), etc. I'd also suggest a rule that requires hypothetical/didactic dialogues and Q's and A's be identified for what they are.
I have always been inclined to be a private/anonymous person, especially on the internet. I understand why even good people want to hide behind anonymous nicks. Is that a helpful thing for
these boards, though? Aren't we trying to expose deception and promote openness and transparency?
For the record, Chaz McHan is not just a username for me, it's the name I got from my parents when I was born.