London Capital & Finance

msallen

Reaper wrote: »

He has been a member for 13 years, made 90,000 posts and been thanked 55,000 times - and those are proper thanks from the financial boards not the Money Saver Arms!

I think that is the problem. If the site's owners can generate as many click throughs to their advertisers from forums hosting inane drivel, then they don't need to suffer the expression of unwanted but actually useful and financially astute opinion in posts on the serious boards.

I have said before that I never bother with the main part of this site - mainly because the knowledgeable posters on these boards nearly always provider more up to date and accurate information - and I have no interest in the forums outside of the 3 or 4 serious ones on savings, investments, pensions and bank accounts, then the removal of the posters of the standing of dunstonh leaves nothing here to draw me back to the site.

HappyHarry

I too have had it confirmed that the ban is permanent.

There have been far worse comments about reputable companies made by others, that have not lead to bans.

Banning dunstonh for his comments about LC&F is not in the interest of consumers who are genuinely asking about this company.

If anything, it implies that MSE are supporting LC&F and their misleading marketing of high risk products instead of protecting consumers.

This is almost the opposite of what I thought the ethos of MSE was.

OldMusicGuy

I am relatively new to MSE but I have found the posts and advice from dusntonh to be invaluable. He will be sadly missed.

I am particularly concerned about he manner of his exclusion. When I first started looking seriously into investment options as I approach retirement, like many novices I was attracted by the ads from companies like LC&F offering great interest rates. It was definitely NOT apparent to me that these were higher risk investments, so the sceptical and cautionary posts from the likes of dunstonh on these types of products were very helpful.

What's become clear to me after being on the forum for a while is the large number of easily-led people out there who fall prey to the ads from these organizations without fully realising what they are getting into. If MSE genuinely believes in "helping the consumer", it has to be strong enough to stand up against commercial organizations that want to drown out voices like dusntonh that provide the vitally needed advice that makes people think before they jump.

I hope Martin Lewis, who still trades off the whole MSE brand, realises what is happening.

Malthusian

Biggles wrote: »

Has this been confirmed, Malthusian? That would be shameful if so.

Yes it has and yes it is.

TBC15

The world of MSE forums has just become a smaller darker place.

Reaper

I now have new information about the ban but I'm not sure what I am allowed to say. So this post may get removed (or maybe I'll get banned too). Here's what happened:
* Somebody (I won't name them) made some huge posts
* Other people objected and pressed the "Report" and "Spam" buttons
* MSE reinstated the post saying it hadn't broken any rules
* dunstonh said the posts were "a waste of space" and "creating confusion for people"
* MSE banned him giving that comment as the reason and said the ban was permanent.

Does that justify such drastic action? I'll leave you to make your own minds up.

Vortigern

Not only has he been unjustly banned, but all his posts from 18 October onwards have been deleted.

Censorship of the worst kind.

Malthusian

Reaper wrote: »

* dunstonh said the posts were "a waste of space" and "creating confusion for people"
* MSE banned him giving that comment as the reason and said the ban was permanent.

Does that justify such drastic action? I'll leave you to make your own minds up.

I don't believe that's the reason, and I continue to await an official response from MSE giving us the real reason.

I was far more rude about those posts than dunstonh, and I haven't even had a warning. (Maybe I'll get banned now I've said that, but I'm fairly sure they've already been seen.) And people say far worse things to each other on the Debate House Prices board every single day.

OldMusicGuy

Reaper wrote: »

I now have new information about the ban but I'm not sure what I am allowed to say. So this post may get removed (or maybe I'll get banned too). Here's what happened:
* Somebody (I won't name them) made some huge posts
* Other people objected and pressed the "Report" and "Spam" buttons
* MSE reinstated the post saying it hadn't broken any rules
* dunstonh said the posts were "a waste of space" and "creating confusion for people"
* MSE banned him giving that comment as the reason and said the ban was permanent.

Does that justify such drastic action? I'll leave you to make your own minds up.

If that's true, definitely not. I was following the thread in question and those posts were long and confusing. We were also suspicious because they looked like posts from someone that might have had a connection with the company in question, rather than being from a regular forum member.

HappyHarry

Reaper wrote: »

I now have new information about the ban but I'm not sure what I am allowed to say. So this post may get removed (or maybe I'll get banned too). Here's what happened:
* Somebody (I won't name them) made some huge posts
* Other people objected and pressed the "Report" and "Spam" buttons
* MSE reinstated the post saying it hadn't broken any rules
* dunstonh said the posts were "a waste of space" and "creating confusion for people"
* MSE banned him giving that comment as the reason and said the ban was permanent.

That is my understanding too.