Not sure how many people were around four years ago for the original drama, but @[email protected] was a banned user from early on the site’s history, and I’ve seen quite a bit of speculation recently that a current frequent poster in c/mutualaid is an alt of hers due to having a similar MO and personal details (such as them both living in the same city)
For context, u/storyofrachel was an unhoused trans woman, who frequently solicited money from the community and had problems with substance abuse. She eventually made a post bragging about scamming money from users here (I myself was one of the users who sent her money) and blowing it on drugs (with a picture of the drugs in question) and a
bunch of homophobic slurs (TW: homophobia, self harm).
She later claimed that her account had been hacked, which frankly I did and do not believe. She was unbanned but later banned for other shit which I don’t recall and am unable to reconstruct from the modlog and came back on a bunch of different alts, all of which were banned.
If there’s any truth to this, it is deeply fucked that this person is still here, evading her ban and scamming people four years later. As one of the people who was taken advantage of previously (and, possibly, again with this current user!), people should at least be able to make an informed decision with all available context. If we want this community to function, and I say this as someone who has sent hundreds of dollars to people over the years through this community, we should be able to guard against bad actors who are trying to take advantage of the compassion and generosity of our user base.
Edit: There’s an Instagram with both usernames on it, publicly available. It’s 100% the same person. Not going to post it because I don’t want anyone to get doxxed but yeah.
Edit edit: I’m going to go touch grass now. Anyone who is being willfully obtuse about why I made this post can read it again or any of my other comments in this thread
You must log in or register to comment.
i mean idk have you guys never given money to a homeless person who said it was their birthday? did you think that was true? would you be mad at them if it wasn’t? aggrandize yourself if you have to, but please break free of the austerity mindset you’re fucking communists for christssake
I don’t usually give money to anyone who calls me a slur, guess I’m not a real communist
This isn’t about a
“these people don’t deserve to have things” approach. This is a discussion about potentially harmful actions, that’s all.Ideally mutual aid happens in person where you can easily know a person. On the Internet with anonymity, you need to have these kinds of conversations to be a sustainable project.
lying about it being your birthday and repeatedly soliciting money in a political space, taking photos of you spending it on drugs (not even cool ones), and calling the people who gave it to you homophobic slurs and telling them to kill themselves are two different orders of magnitude
e: they’re also qualitatively different, she harassed the community too
e2: this all said, people can grow and change, and while it’s up to the individual offering the aid, holding something against someone forever, especially when their behavior is from a situation of crisis or duress, is not productive.
i’m not sure i get what the “scam” is here. was she not open about struggling with addiction, mental health, and homelessness? yeah, sometimes you give money to a homeless person and they spend it on something you don’t approve of, and sometimes a mentally ill person acts like an asshole. you kind of just have to suck it up without resolving to unperson them.
also, years ago it was pointed out that there’s pretty much no appeals process for people who get banned, and the expectation was that you make a new account and not get caught and not do the same thing you were banned for. i realize that this is just an internet forum and it’s not that big a deal but like that’s a joke of an accountability process that would be entirely unworkable in a more serious context.
She quite literally bragged about scamming people on here
Wild if true. Do the redacted parts of that first screenshot line up with the original Rachel? Otherwise just a first name is a bit of a stretch IMO
But if it is the same person coming back after, what, three years to hustle four figure sums from a tiny internet forum is… something
If I knew what Rachel was going by back then I could check, but in any case I don’t think the redacted last name is her birth name, and she could have changed her name over time as well
Edit: Someone sent me the name from Rachel’s original payment info 4 years ago and it seems like it’s her deadname (won’t be posting that obviously). Doesn’t tell us much one way or the other
There are other details though, like both users being from the same city
Edit edit: it’s 100% the same user
Dang, so it is
all I’ve learnt from this is if I ever need money for drugs I’m coming straight to this comm 👍
People on here are genuinely very generous, I’ve had multiple people offer to give me money for an eighth or a quarter of weed before when I complained about running out. I’ve declined because I think the money could go to people who need it more, but it’s honestly heart warming to know that there are people on here who would sacrifice their comfort just for mine, not even necessarily something I need
I hate all of this. What a fucked up and sad situation.
Thats where im at. :(
Nobody is forcing anyone to give to anyone else here and now that there’s a block button for users it’s even less important to ban people imo. If someone wants to give money to the person constantly complaining their life is a mess because they do too much meth then more power to them, I just block and move on 🤷
removed by mod
Isn’t there a point where you just become an enabler though? I don’t know if you can OD on meth, but if someone abused heroine and a community financed that abuse until the user OD’ed, wouldn’t that kind of be on the community?
I’m genuinely asking by the way, not trying to do some weird debate thing of thinking up some odd hypothetical or some shitty rhetorical framing in order to shame people for helping. The example is just to explain my thought process.
I expect it’s the kinda thing that doesn’t have a clear answer, but I feel like there’s also people who know a lot more than me about mutual aid, who will have a much better answer.
I personally wouldn’t become an enabler bc I don’t give that person money, and it’s not my place to set the morals of another group of people be it the community or the user in question. The original identity of the user is sort of moot imo bc if you read the posts, it’s pretty much what you see is what you get. So if that’s not the kind of content you want to see, block and move on.
The only argument I could entertain is, well, if you have money and youre a communist and this other person doesn’t it’s your responsibility to help them, which I guess would be the case, but you can’t help everyone and there are plenty of opportunities here to help others even if its just sticking to the people I know.
First off thank you for your answer. I am writing this follow-up because I feel my question was phrased poorly and thus led to an answer to a different query than the one I had in my head.
I’m not talking about passing judgement on others, but I can see how that’s what I described with my phrasing. I’m also not talking about caring about what others spend their money on, but again, I phrased it poorly.
If I give financial aid anonymously to someone , whom I know abuses drugs which can kill them*, and I know this person is stuck in a pattern of financial aid they needed for housing or food on drugs instead, and I keep giving them money whilst they complain that their drug habit has gotten worse, and they then OD…
IF all of this in this very long and needlessly complex hypothetical happened, would I not then be some kind of enabler? Isn’t there a point where me giving money unconditionally to someone who spends it on harmful and addictive narcotics (who complains about their habit) becomes hurtful instead of helpful?- I specify this to make it more extreme in order to more clearly phrame what I am asking about, not in order to eliminate nuance or grey zones. Its easier to draw the line here than with less harmful drugs, and I feel like that’s a bit of a pitfall of a discussion which isn’t really what I’m trying to ask about, but I also feel the need to acknowledge that by making it about OD’ing I am phraming the discussion in a certain way. So therefore this footnote.
i give her money sometimes. i know its the same person. I dont feel scammed. I can see how someone not knowing the history or not having put together the clues could feel that way theoretically but ultimately I dont think there’s anything actionable here besides maybe clarifying the policy on alts of banned users. (though sometimes it feels like the ambiguity gives the team latitude to deal with things on a case by case basis in a way thats positive overall)
Maybe we should have some kind of official ban appeal process? I’ve seen some heated moments go down on this site and users get banned for it who were otherwise good posters but let emotions or drugs or whatever get to them.
Idk, I wasn’t around for this first incident so I don’t have a grudge or anything or even much information about it but it does bother me that she won’t even acknowledge it happened (at this moment)
I want to believe that that’s all that was, some kind of heated moment
In the past at least, acknowledging you were an alt of a banned user was bannable behavior. Not something I’d want to risk if I frequently relied on this place for sustenance, idk about you.
True but accounts also get banned for people finding out they are alts of banned users (like DayOfDoom’s alts)
And it’s pretty out and obvious now
yeah sometimes. I’ve said elsewhere in the thread I think the policy (or lack thereof) on banned users alts provides a way for admins to exercise some discretion. Maybe that’s unfair, but I generally trust and agree with their decisions. Someone who comes back repeatedly and inevitably breaks the rules each time is different than someone who comes back once and doesn’t break the same rules over again, for example. It’s easier to leave some ambiguity than it is to spell out exactly what the policy is and risk it being exploited by rules-lawyering bad actors.
The whole situation is just incredibly sad and was only ever going to end in tears after the large donations. You’d have to be very naive to think otherwise. Honestly I’m just happy that Rachel is still alive.
Overall, the average life expectancy of unhoused people is 42 to 52 years old
Rachel could well just be dead by this point
This whole situation is really upsetting me, especially some of the attitudes people here seem to hold about “personal responsibility” and addiction (having struggled with this it’s not so simple a problem to deal with) :(
Idk how we can solve the problem of trust in /c/mutual_aid or if it can even be solved but I just wanna say people here have helped me and my friend* stay fed multiple times and we really appreciate it
*Receiving money from “tankies” has changed his view of them to a more positive one btw lmao
Regardless of her shitty behavior the site was just as shitty to her beforehand. The homeless person we shit on for buying drugs being a bigot doesn’t justify us jumping on a homeless person for buying drugs. It just means we’re lucky it wasn’t a fully innocent person who got the brunt of it
I looked over this post like five times… so the “scamming people” is that this user posted in mutual_aid and then spent the money on drugs? And also that they called people slurs once. Am I reading this right? Did this user lie about being homeless at any point?
They made a post bragging that they scammed people and spent the money on drugs while calling the people who donated slurs. I don’t know about you but when someone says explicitly says they’re scamming me, I tend believe them. And I especially don’t appreciate being called a f****t while they’re doing it. I have no idea if Rachel lied about being homeless, but honestly I’d take whatever she says with a gigantic grain of salt considering
I’ve come to find that people choose what they want to believe when it comes to things like this.
removed by mod
I was never this mean to you, ever.
What happened? You aren’t even denying you’re the same person who said those things? I wasn’t around for it but I can see it in the modlog
I’ve said some horrible mean shit in anger before but nothing like that tbh. This is really upsetting me more than it should
Why?
You took my money, laughed about scamming me and called me and everyone else you suckered a f****t and to kill themselves. If you thought it had been long enough that no one would remember, you were wrong. Sorry your past actions are coming back to haunt you, that must suck
God damn. Somehow I missed this one four years ago. Looks like she’s still struggling with life. Sad place to be.
So as the person who apparently pointed this out to people, I have a few things I’d like to say here.
One, after I posted my previous comment, someone responded to me with more information which confirms that, yes, this is the same person. (I’m gonna be honest, I had assumed it was from pretty early on, given all the things that lined up, so that came as no real surprise to me.)
Two, whatever the story was behind Rachel’s behavior years ago, I have never observed her saying anything unkind or inappropriate since her return to the site. As far as I can tell, she at least learned her lesson on that. I’ve been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, and it looks to me like she’s made good on that trust and not been toxic like she was before–in spite of all this drama that has descended on her lately.
Three, and this one is pretty big for me: I have never caught her in a lie on here since she came back. Not once. And as people may have realized by now, I pay pretty close attention.
Seriously, consider her actions in recent weeks, and tell me if this sounds like scammer behavior: First, she voluntarily tells everyone she raised nearly $800 from a single post. There was absolutely zero reason to tell anyone that. Why on Earth would a scammer, whose whole scam depended on making people think they were desperate, tell people they had just received a windfall? And that is of course magnified by the post letting us all know about that $4k. No scammer with half a brain would tell us, and no scammer with even one brain cell would let on that they got so much money and then spent it all inside of a month’s time. If anything, that proves to me that she’s being honest, even to an arguable fault.
And I want to mention that I have caught at least one recipient of my largess here on Hexbear in a lie (it was an utterly pointless lie, too; I had already made clear I was going to provide this person with money, and they then lied to me to make it sound like they had better means to pay it back than they really did, even though I had not asked to be paid back in any way). I have not given that person any money since, even though they have made posts here requesting funds since then. Another user changed their original ask after someone sent them the amount they requested and said so in a comment, which really rubbed me the wrong way. I reported that to mods but never heard anything back, and the post stayed up, but I never donated to that user again either.
By contrast, Rachel made clear that she was spending the money on food, and honestly, I think the small-time donations really were used that way. But even if not, even if she did sometimes buy drugs with that money, well, you can’t give money to a meth addict and expect them not to use it in ways you might not like. And I say that as someone who gave her upwards of $400, all told.
Is it disappointing that she didn’t succeed in making her situation permanently better with that four grand? Absolutely, and it seems clear to me that she’s more upset about that than we all are. But I don’t really agree that her recent behavior makes her a “bad actor.”
Actually, misrepresenting herself as a new user and not a new account for someone who was banned quite some time ago is the original lie that you’re missing here. I wouldn’t have given money to someone who called me a f****t and bragged about scamming me in the past. That’s the lie. It’s nice you’ve absolved her, but I absolutely have not.
If it’s her, as you say, she should be banned instantaneously from this site.
I’m sorry, that’s ridiculous. She never said she was a brand-new user, and I don’t think it’s wrong to come back after years away. I understand if you’re not willing to forgive her for using slurs, but I do not at all agree that she was lying by making a new account.
A lie of omission is still a lie. And there’s also the bragging about scamming people.
A lie of omission requires context. Otherwise everyone is lying by omission at all times by not telling everyone literally everything about themselves.
Not gonna try to defend the bragging about scamming people, but it was years ago and I don’t believe in crucifying people for past sins.
Anyway, I’ve been touching grass for the last month or so, and have only been interacting with this site in one way: watching this comm for posts asking for money. That’s the only reason I’m even here in this thread. If you want to hate Rachel, no one is stopping you, but I don’t think that has anything to do with this comm or the rules, and it’s really not clear to me what this post is about other than getting mad at Rachel–I don’t see any proposed rule changes.
The context in this case is that this person was already banned for various offenses like hurling slurs at other community members, including OP. If she was honest about her identity, he wouldn’t have given her money. How is that not a lie by omission?
Do you introduce yourself by telling people about shitty things that you’ve done in the past? Do you make requests by offering people all the reasons they might want to refuse that request? Rachel was asking for money in a post, not DMing OP specifically asking for it. I really don’t see this as a lie by omission.
Do you support the checkbox on job applications about ever having been arrested for or convicted of a crime? This feels like the same thing to me.
Do you introduce yourself by telling people about shitty things that you’ve done in the past?
No, because such things generally aren’t relevant to how I’m interacting with those people. In this case, the user’s past conduct is very relevant because people might not want to lend money to someone who was very publicly thrown out of the community for homophobia and abuse.
Do you support the checkbox on job applications about ever having been arrested for or convicted of a crime?
… No? That’s an institutional barrier to employment, and not remotely similar to the situation at hand. I also wouldn’t support banning people from the mutual aid comm for being arrested for or convicted of a crime, if you’re curious.
My proposed change is that a known scammer who is evading a ban should be banned for the health of this comm, and that allowing someone like this to operate on here makes it less likely for others who need it to get help
as a neutral observation i believe mentioning that you are the new account of a previously banned user is a bannable offense
Ban evasion is still a bannable offense even if you don’t say you’re an alt
In practice, we have lots of people here who are almost certainly alts of banned users, that have managed to avoid repeating the behaviors that got them banned. Some even take variations on the same username.
yeah but like the whole banning process is a complete joke and the rules on what counts as acknowledging an evasion are completely arbitrary on a case by case basis, like almost all of the power users who’ve been banned just kept / keep posting on the site under a different name that everyone knows is them until they get banned again, wait 48 hours, then just make another account and keep posting
I mean you have to consider that the site mod culture seems to be that ban evading is kind of okay as long as it’s not really discussed, but if they were to come back and say “hey this is me evading a ban,” well, that’s ban evasion
Is it disappointing that she didn’t succeed in making her situation permanently better with that four grand? Absolutely, and it seems clear to me that she’s more upset about that than we all are. But I don’t really agree that her recent behavior makes her a “bad actor.”
This is pretty much where I’m at, if it is the same person they seem to be trying to be better. I’m not mad about them spending all that money, I only posted about it last night because i just sometimes think/wish there could have been better outcomes with that…
I’m not scamming anyone. Please stop this.
removed by mod
Believe what you want to believe.
I think this post is pretty clear about what I believe and who you are.
