This guy is just a wee bit delusional, so good time for a bump:
Seems he's mistaken me for someone else, since that was the first and only time I've involved myself in that sad little debacle he's created. And also since I have a wife, child, job, am financially comfortable (just bought a new flat), and I'm not doing drugs. :)
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Wow, he still thinks his 'uncut' email says something different, when it just makes him look worse...xD
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"german logic" lol
no offense to Germans with more than 2 braincells
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Oh my God, really?! I'm not even going to comment on this statement, so even ignoring the whole content of this, this message makes me cringe. So many spelling / grammar errors, ugh.
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Reading that just massacred a million of my brain cells into oblivion.
You got lucky, barash, I wish he'd blacklist me. Sick of seeing his filthy fucking GAs...
A drunken, jawless orc would be immeasurably more coherent than this deluded fool!
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Look how overly defensive and offensive he gets. #1 sign of someone lying. He isn't even smart enough to get through all this. In some cases I have some sort of admiration for socio-/psychopaths that know how to get away with pretty bad stuff but when someone is too stupid to even make his "charity" group work I have no respect what so ever.
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The thing is, he thinks that he's in the clear after everything and his providing the emails all that really did was dig a bigger hole.
I am still surprised a month out nothing has happened from this, it's wrong. Group is just a mess now, people are going to go into the group blind not noticing any drama so it's not really a fair judge to say "oh we got 5k more members" when most of those aren't even aware of the problem.
I'd like to see something happen still and I am behind anyone that's trying to put an end to his lies.
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The guy that posted on reddit who said he has a direct line to Valve has yet to respond to any "What news from Valve?" posts.
All that's really been done is a few of his reviews got deleted/disabled, and he put his own profile to private.
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The guy is delusional as fuck... And the 'whole email traffic' just proved even more how of a douchebag he is. It proves the opposite of what he thinks it proves.. I can't believe he's still trying to defend his shady actions and accuse every single human being of being a troll.
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lol it would be great if he just gave up and stopped making things worse for himself... He already has mods and other random people stalking people in groupchats. It makes him look really bad honestly. As a former mod of OTG I have gotten many adds from these people they are really not trying to hide it since they have him added and one of the "Original" groups as favorite group. Their reasons for adding me makes no sense either. "I wanna add you to bookmark your screenshots please!"
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He lives in his own OxG network world where he is the good guy and all other people are the bad guys or trolls.Very annoying that Valve does not responds on this problem.
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Because I am known for being very forgiving and not one to keep bringing up issues over and over.
BUMP : )
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What is it with all those invites recently? Got two for the Duck Society in the last two days. Aren't people reading?
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Oh.... My.... God........... I have no idea how I can keep getting speechless about this joke of a person... Wtf is wrong with his brain.... o.o
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I know right, guy is unreal.
But hey, everyone needs an anti-hero : )
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Welp, that's it. My brain has finally thrown up the white flag. It's finally dead.
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One of my favourites :D Funny with lots of black humour and for some reason I also can't find I found the young lady really captivating :)
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He will never stop :) and not everyone is reading no.. Unfortunately >.<
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I sometimes wish this was a sticky thread, I'm done with those invites and ducky's practices in general. Perhaps if it was a sticky, the amount of invites would finally decrease. :/
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Yea even when leaving those groups I see still many friends still in XP they are not bad people I feel sorry for those who missed this post.
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Bump because reasons. Man valve needs to deal with this. they have closed popular groups before as I remember ( for different reasons, but whatever.)
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I hope this group/group of groups die in a fire. Giveaway groups are mostly redundant anyway and just people who want some people desperate for free games to look up to them.
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Never saw the owner's drama until now, so I decided to leave all the groups in which he was part of the staff.
Thanks for the heads up, NerdHouse
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Isn't this direct violation of SG rule?
Do not ask users or developers for keys or gifts, whether in comments, chat, or outside the site.
if it is, shouldn't be anything done with that?
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I don't get how he is still not banned and still spamming trash games into the site.
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Why you dont ignore all the things and enjoy the giveaways / winnaways?
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WTF STEAMGIFTS WHY IS THAT FUKIN IDIOT STILL HERE? BAN HIS SORRY ASS!
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I seen someone doing a GA advertising his groups; was tempted to bring this up
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he is a low life kid with no education at all, just check his spelling errors, pathetic!
he should be banned on steamgifts indeed! at least "steamcompanion" realized this to be the best way of dealing with such a jerk
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Regardless of what I think about his unethical practises and ways of buying cheap popularity among the gullible masses, spelling errors in a foreign language (or even native) doesn't always indicate low education. One of the worst grammar/spelling I ever saw in my life was from one of my university professors.
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Original whatever shit that I tl;dr
I once said something like "oh, you're the guys that tried to blackmail dev for game key?" in one of their GA. Raffler responded with a long ass, rage filled comment about how it's wrong and I'm wrong too, but at the same time blacklisted me so I couldn't respond there. Even though I already entered that GA.
10/10, would shit on those fucks again
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Missed this wait on vacation. Thanks for the heads up.
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Ahh... I was wondering with that one giveaway on front page...
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lol .. now they're "the most active charity group on steam" .. what a joke
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The sad part is over a month passed and it just all died down, no consequences, no bans, no nothing.
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Same thing here haha
I was wondering how his shitload of giveaways magically disappeared and found out he blacklisted me.
He is so pathetic when you read some of the chatlogs. Telling devs to ban people because they are acting against Steam's rules when they troll him.
This has enough attention already and he gets more people with an equally low set of mental abilities and creates more groups thinking noone would know. One ban and it would be over.
I mean SteamCompanion banned him! Steam fucking Companion. Makes me really wonder about Steamgifts ethics.
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Steam is fucking it's companion? Who's steam? Who's the companion?
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It's really pathetic. I could almost have a sense of sympathy for him if he would be able to cover it up or at least argue properly but he just accuses people of being trolls and childish, telling people to ban and report them, while being the one who has no idea about anything he is doing. He just found out a way to scam devs for keys and get large groups of people that have the same mindset: Get games for free. He's like a tween that's hungry for likes on instagram. Probably trying to compensate for something.
And I understand what you mean. He also enters giveaways and abuses his falsely acquired level which is really pissing me off.
Knowing he reads all this is really pleasing in a way. Hey, duck, you suck gtfo.
Still I don't understand why he is still active and allowed to be here. Makes me think about what CG takes as good and bad. I could completely derail here and say he probably doesn't want to lose the giveaway input, because more giveaways mean more traffic also because the groups have a large number of members and they probably register here for all the gibs.
Oh boy, I would instantly stop creating giveaways if that would be the case.
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I don't think there's any particular interest for cg to increase traffic, it's not like he's earning money with this site (at least I'm pretty sure he isn't).
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I'd say a little from the tiny ad. Probably not enough to live from but anyways I'd love to see him take some action from time to time.
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Yeah there are ads, but running a site with this many users has a significant cost. I don't know the exact cost of a website or the exact revenues from ads, but I think more users would cost more than what it generates.
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I know. I was just expecting the worst. You know how often I rant, I'm not exactly optimistic about things. I just hope to see some stuff getting done here.
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That's true and I already saw people advertising the groups in their giveaways unfortunately. Yet I do think they should make an example out of him and show people that this isn't tolerated.
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I kept spamming his giveaways with 'Harassed any devs lately' till he blacklisted him. Good riddance :D At least you're on my whitelist :P
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He blacklisted you for posted the bump? Or have I missed something? :)
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Very strange. I sent him a message the other day in one of the other threads. It wasn't polite and it seems like he completely ignored it. Either that or he didn't understand what I was saying. Yet... I still see his giveaways.
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Now you are a martyr in this ongoing conflict against the duck.
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Small update to the OP.
He is still insisting he did nothing wrong, even claiming everyone in this thread to be a troll, although all the evidence posted here PROVES WITHOUT ANY SHRED OF DOUBT that he is a scumbag and that he did do wrong.
I'll cleanup the OP a bit later, and add more links to chats/screenshots in a "proof" section.
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You have all probably seen this group "network" at some point. They send out invites to everyone. They giveaway bundle games here in mass quantities as part of their recruitment. They also advertise giving away AAA titles to whoever invites the most people to their groups. Sadly those giveaways are rigged, as they are not done on SteamGifts, but rather in his group's forum, and no winners are chosen truly at random as the system here allows.
But that's not what I'm here to tell you about.
First, let me show you exactly what I am talking about, in case you are unfamiliar with the OTG Network.
Original Traders Group
Original Curators Group
Original Giveaway Group
German Giveaway Community
Original Society Club
Duck Society
The above 6 groups are what's known as the 'Original Network'. It originally started as just the top group. It's recently expanded unnecessarily into the other groups. You can do everything the 4 groups do with one group, after all. The groups are also all populated by the same people, so don't let the numbers fool you. The Original Society Club is for the most loyal of his followers, where he supposedly does non-bundle game giveaways. Duck Society is...I don't even.
They are all run by a lovely fellow named SalzStange. His username here on SteamGifts is AngryErpel.
Confirmed with SteamGifts Support that this is not calling out..
SalzStange was recently outted on Twitter for trying to blackmail a developer for a free Steam Key. This kind of activity has been known to occur in this "network" but was covered up by his loyalists. When things like this happened in the past, or someone wrote a negative review for a game SalzStange obtained keys for, he would ask his loyalists to downrate the hell out of the review, which they sadly did. According to other 'victims', his loyalists were also asked to harass people that did not agree with SalzStange's methods or people who called him out on his bullshit. It's safe to say some are blindly following him in the hopes of free games. This is, of course, unacceptable, and since this was brought public, some of his loyalists left the group. Namely a few (most) of his admins and even a co-founder. He now has a new set of followers and Admins/Mods, and they are still up to the same routine.
SalzStange thinks giving away games is charity, and refers to his groups as "the biggest charity groups on Steam".
Charity is helping people who are less fortunate (IE Homeless, starving, etc), donating clothes and food to homeless people, or volunteering at a shelter....things of that nature. Not giving away games to privileged people on SteamGifts. He lists hundreds of giveaways for bundle games and games he's received from devs here on SteamGifts. The bundle games he asks members to donate to him so he can give them away here or in his group's chat (this has been confirmed by many former members). Either way, he is unfairly benefiting from contributor value here on SteamGifts because of this. He is currently a LV 9 contributor here on SteamGifts.
There is a reddit thread where a lot of people have come forward to share their experiences with SalzStange and his groups. and there is also a NEOGAF thread.
Proof, evidence, chatlogs, examples of his behavior and other things.
Take a look at these and find out for yourself what kind of person SalzStange is. Don't listen to his long-winded excuses or lies he's posted here and elsewhere.
2706 line OTG Group Chat Log
Full email conversation - This is the 'unedited' screenshot SalzStange provided that he claims absolves him of all accusations. It, in fact, makes him look worse.
My experience with SalzStange and his group
Chat harassment
SalzStange's SteamRep Report
SalzStange's "apology" to the dev he blackmailed
SalzStange thinks there's no proof
Valve is at least aware of this situation
SalzStange thinks those "against" him are all trolls
SalzStange denies allegations concerning his rigged giveaways, which were already confirmed as true
SalzStange's official statement after he was caught
Former Mod's response to his 'official statement'
SalzStange's post history on the Steam forums. A great example of his attitude and how he talks to developers
OTG Head Admin is okay with SalzStange's actions.
SalzStange has been permanently banned from SteamCompanion.
SalzStange calls those who caught him and spread awareness of his lies 'troll' and 'haters'..
SteamCompanion Group Chatlog where SalzStange was invited to discuss his ban
If you are still a part of this "network" I advise you all to leave to avoid being dragged down with him. It will happen eventually. WGN got shut down for doing less than this.
If you would like to combat this network and it's practices, there are a number of things you can do.
If you are a member of any of their groups, or any of the groups that SalzStange associates with (Such as Hookups where he is an Admin), simply leave them. You can also share this thread with people on your friendslists who are members of these groups and advise them to leave as well.
TL;DR:
SalzStange threatened a dev, got caught, and is still trying to lie and cover up the facts, acting like he did nothing wrong.
He claims to be an adult, but is refusing to own up to his actions. Everything we do in life has consequences. It's time he faces them.
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